Wind Erosion in Western Queensland Australia

Chapter 8 – Conclusionsand Channel Country than in the fragmented woodlands of the Mulga Lands. The resulthighlighted the importance of wind erosion models to be able to account for the spatialdistribution of vegetation in environments with heterogeneous cover.The fourth aim of this thesis was to map the extent of areas susceptible to wind erosionin western Queensland. This aim was achieved by addressing the seventh researchobjective. That was, to apply the model developed in Chapter 5 to assess spatial patterns inland erodibility across western Queensland. Spatial patterns in land erodibility were reportedin Chapter 7 from a 27-year simulation from 1980 to 2006. Three regions of the study areawere found to have consistently high land erodibility. These include the south-western MulgaLands, Strzelecki Desert, and western side of the Channel Country. Areas that frequentlyhave moderate land erodibility extend from the high erodibility regions. These areas expandacross the driest parts of the study area, covering the western and southern portions of theChannel Country, the Strzelecki dunefields and the western half of the Mulga Lands. A beltof moderately erodible land also frequently extends north-east from the Channel Country intothe Mitchell Grass Downs near Longreach. Land areas with consistently low and noerodibility occur across the northern and eastern boundaries of the study area in the MitchellGrass Downs and Mulga Lands. The landforms associated with erodible land, i.e. riverfloodplains and dunefields, are consistent with those in other dust source areas in Africa, theMiddle East, and China. The spatial patterns in land erodibility were found to match thespatial pattern of dust-storm frequencies in western Queensland. The coarse model input dataresolution meant that AUSLEM could not accurately represent erodible land in the SimpsonDesert bioregion.The final aim of this thesis was to identify the role of climate variability in determiningspatial and temporal patterns in land erodibility in western Queensland. This aim wasachieved by addressing the eighth research objective. That was, to analyse spatial andtemporal patterns in modelled land erodibility in the context of regional scale rainfall andteleconnections driving climate variability across western Queensland. Results werepresented in Chapter 7 and are based on the 27-year simulation of land erodibility (1980-2006).First, seasonal patterns in land erodibility were examined. The research found that landerodibility in western Queensland has weak seasonality. The strength of seasonal variations193