Wind Erosion in Western Queensland Australia

Chapter 1 - Introductionchapter then describes the study area and concludes with an outline of the thesis structure andchapter content.1.2 Wind Erosion in AustraliaAustralia is the world’s driest inhabited continent, with 75% of the land mass being classifiedas arid and semi-arid (Peel et al., 2007). This means that large areas of Australia arepotentially susceptible to wind erosion. Aeolian landforms dominate the arid interior of thecontinent, and wind erosion processes have long been a natural occurrence in arid and semiaridAustralia (Hesse and McTainsh, 2003).Early assessments of wind erosion in Australia were conducted during periods of high duststorm activity and drought. Table 1.1 provides a chronology of early studies that sought toidentify the extent of wind erosion in Australia.Table 1.1 Chronology of early surveys of land affected by wind erosion in Australia (1900-1990)Author Year District, Region or State SurveyedAnon 1901 Western New South Wales (NSW) Royal CommissionMacDonald-Holmes 1936 Australia-wideRatcliffe 1937 South AustraliaLoewe 1943 Australia-wideKaleski 1945 Border region of NSW and South Australia (SA)Skerman 1947 Channel Country of western Queensland (Qld)Beadle 1948 Border region of NSW and South Australia (SA)Taylor 1948 Harden-Young district of central-eastern NSWTeakle 1957 Australia-wideStewart 1968 Central and eastern NSWRae 1976 Mallee regions around Mildura, southwest NSWWoods 1984 Australia-wideCarter 1985 Eastern AustraliaMcSwain 1986 Mallee and Wimmera areas of VictoriaSlater 1986 Western Darling Downs-Maranoa areas of southern QldApproximately half of the early surveys (Table 1.1) were conducted in central and southwesternNew South Wales (NSW), a region subject to intensive agriculture, drought, and ahistory of land degradation associated with a feral rabbit population (McKeon et al., 2004).The erosion surveys provided snapshots of the state of the landscape and did not capturespatial patterns in wind erosion at the continental scale (Leys, 1999). Temporal changes in the4