Wind Erosion Dynamics and Soil Management

Wind erosion is a geomorphological process in which soil particles are detached, transported and deposited by wind forces, leading to loss of fertile topsoil, reduced agricultural productivity and increased dust emissions. The dynamics of this phenomenon are governed by the interplay of meteorological factors (especially wind speed and turbulence), soil properties (texture, moisture content and crust formation) and surface cover (vegetation and mulch). Soil management strategies aim to mitigate these processes through practices such as soil crust enhancement, cover maintenance, windbreak installation and tailored land use planning. Contemporary research focuses on quantifying susceptibility at various scales, refining predictive models to account for previously neglected factors and designing interventions that balance conservation with productive land use. Advances in remote sensing, machine learning and process‐based modelling now enable more precise mapping of erodible zones, improved understanding of micro‐scale crust dynamics and integration of sub‐grid‐scale heterogeneities into regional assessments. Effective management hinges on adaptive strategies that combine field‐scale trials with landscape‐level decision support tools, ensuring both local resilience and broader ecosystem services are maintained.

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Wind Erosion Dynamics and Soil Management publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in wind erosion dynamics and soil management across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Wind erosivity: The potential of wind to cause soil particle detachment, often quantified by wind speed distribution above a threshold value.

Soil erodibility: The inherent susceptibility of soil to detachment by wind, determined by texture, aggregate stability and moisture content.

Soil crust: A dense surface layer formed by the binding of fine particles, which increases resistance to wind detachment but can also impede water infiltration.

Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ): A process‐based model that predicts soil loss by wind, incorporating factors for climate, soil, surface roughness and vegetation cover.

Non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV): Plant residues and litter that lack chlorophyll but contribute to surface cover and reduce soil exposure to wind.

Erodible fraction: The proportion of soil particles within a sample that can be detached and transported by wind under given conditions.

Mean weight diameter (MWD): A measure of soil aggregate size distribution, calculated as the weighted average diameter of soil aggregates, which correlates with susceptibility to wind erosion.

References

1. Evaluation of the effect of the mixture of soil textural compounds on the strength of the soil crust: Coding and optimization. Results in Engineering (2024).
2. An improvement of the Revised Wind Erosion Equation by considering the effect of non-photosynthetic vegetation. Geoderma (2024).
3. Mapping of the wind erodible fraction of soil by bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) and bidirectional recurrent neural network (BiRNN) deep learning models. Catena (2023).