Wind Erosion in Western Queensland Australia

Chapter 3 – Modelling Land Erodibility Reviewfactors represent a shift forward from broad global dust source characterisations, and result inimproved estimations of global dust loads.3.5 Synthesis and DiscussionIn general, two approaches have been taken to representing soil and land erodibilityconditions in wind erosion models. These include: 1) integrating empirical relationshipsbetween soil surface conditions, moisture content and vegetation cover to compute rates ofsoil loss (e.g. WEQ, RWEQ); and 2) using mechanistic approaches that seek to integratephysical and theoretical relationships between soil and land surface conditions and u *t (e.g.WEPS; DPM; IWEMS).The development of wind erosion models has been characterised by a shift from empiricallybasedfield scale analyses to process-based regional to global scale analyses. This progressionhas induced changes in the model input data requirements, which reflect both increases inmodel complexity and in the availability of spatial data. The temporal resolution at whichwind erosion models operate has also increased, from annual to sub-hourly time-steps. Thesedevelopments have led to changes in the complexity in the way in which soil and land surfaceconditions are represented in the models. This complexity has generated a need for greatercomputing power and has brought increased attention to the use of integrated modellingapproaches, e.g. coupling wind erosion models with climate models (Shao, 2000).Surprisingly, few of the models reviewed in this chapter have been applied to assess winderosion hazard. While the WEELS and WEPS models have been applied to assess winderosion risk in Europe and the United States (Böhner et al., 2003; Coen et al., 2004),published applications of the models for this purpose have been limited to geographicallysmall areas (