Wind Erosion in Western Queensland Australia

Chapter 1 - Introductiontemporal patterns of potential wind erosion both in Australia and internationally. Theyinclude:• There is a poor knowledge of exactly which areas of Australia are susceptible to winderosion. This is a significant problem considering that Australia contains the dominantdust source area in the southern hemisphere – the Lake Eyre Basin.• There is a lack of research into spatial and temporal patterns in land erodibility at thelandscape scale. Research into land erodibility at this scale is essential if we are to betterlink field scale wind erosion processes to regional dust emission and transport processes.• We have a poor knowledge of how soil and land erodibility respond to climate variabilityand land management, particularly in rangeland environments which cover ~45% of theglobal land surface.• There is a lack of quantitative models to predict temporal changes in soil erodibility towind. Soil erodibility is a fundamental control on wind erosion and so this issue affectsany research that seeks to model wind erosion processes.• There is a growing requirement to learn more about the sensitivity of rangelands toclimate variability and land management pressures in light of uncertain future climatechange. Assessing the landscape susceptibility to land degradation processes like winderosion is an essential component of this research.1.4 Thesis Aims and ObjectivesThe thesis has five aims. The aims seek to address the research problems listed in Section 1.3.They are:1. To develop a framework for modelling temporal changes in soil erodibility in response toclimate variability and land management pressures.2. To develop AUSLEM into a functional model to assess land susceptibility to winderosion, i.e. land erodibility, across western Queensland, Australia.3. To validate the performance of the land erodibility model.4. To map the spatial extent of areas susceptible to wind erosion in western Queensland.5. To identify the role of climate variability in determining spatial and temporal patterns inland erodibility dynamics in western Queensland.12