An aeolian transport model for flat shifting sand fields under dynamic-limiting conditions

Estimating aeolian transport rates in the field is a difficult task even though various transport equations have been proposed. In this study, we used 5 years of field data on aeolian transport from an experimental plot for aeolian research located in the southeastern Tengger Desert to develop a practical aeolian transport equation capable of estimating transport rates in flat shifting sand fields. The resulting equation relates transport to the average wind velocity during a given period through a modified power function. The transport rate increases linearly with the cube of the average wind velocity. The equation can be generalized rate to a form that contains a proportionality coefficient and a threshold average wind velocity. The proposed model has an advantage over previous models in that it is based on a much larger sample size and corrected to account for variability in wind direction, sampling efficiency, and the height of the wind measurements. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.