Wind Erosion Changes in a Semi-Arid Sandy Area, Inner Mongolia, China

Hanbing Zhang, Yang Gao, Danfeng Sun, Lulu Liu, Yanzhi Cui and Wenjie Zhu
Additional contact information
Hanbing Zhang: College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Land Qualify, Monitoring and Control, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100193, China
Yang Gao: College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Land Qualify, Monitoring and Control, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100193, China
Danfeng Sun: College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Land Qualify, Monitoring and Control, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100193, China
Lulu Liu: College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Land Qualify, Monitoring and Control, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100193, China
Yanzhi Cui: Sino-Japan Friendship Center for Environmental Protection, Beijing 100029, China
Wenjie Zhu: College of Land Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Agricultural Land Qualify, Monitoring and Control, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100193, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Wind erosion is one of the major environmental problems in drylands. Identifying the dominant natural factors of wind erosion and using targeted treatment measures are the key steps in wind erosion control. Using Horqin Left Back Banner in China as a case study, we applied the revised wind erosion equation to simulate the spatial distribution of wind erosion in the semi-arid sandy area. Contribution assessment and constraint line analysis were used to investigate the contributions of driving forces to wind erosion changes. The results showed that the wind erosion in the whole area was reduced by 0.35 t/hm 2 ·a from 2005 to 2016. The wind factor and vegetation coverage factor had dominant contributions to the wind erosion modulus and accounted for the erosion in 49.87% and 50.13% of the total area, respectively. In addition, the average wind speed exceeding the threshold and the number of occurrences exhibited significant correlations with the wind erosion severity. Meanwhile, the mitigation effects of vegetation coverage on wind erosion decreased with the increase in wind speed. The temporal mismatch between the wind speed and vegetation coverage was the main reason for the frequent severe wind erosion in spring. Reducing the spring wind speed through adding windbreaks would be an effective method for decreasing wind erosion in semi-arid areas.

Keywords: wind erosion; RWEQ; driving factors; contribution assessment; Horqin Left Back Banner (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/188/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/1/188/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:1:p:188-:d:194335

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().