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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lubbock, Texas » Cropping Systems Research Laboratory » Wind Erosion and Water Conservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #81950
Title: MODELING WIND EROSION

Author
item Fryrear, Donald

Submitted to: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Wind Erosion
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/1/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: New wind erosion models like the Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ), the Erosion Prediction Equation (WEPS), and the Wind Erosion Assessment Model (WEAM) all utilize new technology to describe the wind erosion process. Effective and efficient wind erosion control systems can be developed with RWEQ because the available resources will be used to design systems that will be most effective. Our current knowledge about wind erosion builds on research from the last sixty years. When severe wind events occur some erosion may result from the best systems.

Technical Abstract: Man has lived with the hazards of wind erosion for centuries. Efforts to accurately model wind erosion span almost 40 years. Field erosion measuring equipment was developed to test a new wind erosion model on a variety of weather, crop, soil, and farming systems. With the measurement of field erosion, establishing base line conditions for future comparisons is possible. The field measurements verified that mass transport varies as th cube of the wind velocity. Mass transport increases with field length until the wind stream cannot transport additional material. Maximum transport is sufficient to destroy most crop seedlings within 15 minutes. Soil losses from a single storm were 8.03 kg/m^2 from a 2.5 ha circular field. Soil losses from an entire erosion season varied from 0.1 to 30.9 kg/m^2. Field size ranged from 2.5 to 145 hectares. Field measurements of wind erosion from 43 site/erosion periods verify that tthe RWEQ is suitable for a variety of soil, weather, crop, and management conditions. Effective and efficient wind erosion control systems can be evaluated with RWEQ because of its flexibility. More complex models includig WEAM and TEAM are available, but may require input data not readily available. Efforts to improve wind erosion predictions are underway in the WEPS, WEAM, and TEAM efforts.