Wind Erosion Processes in Desert
Erosion of the soil is a process of soil destruction under the wind either water. Erosion is a highly threatening phenomenon causing tremendous danger for the environment and human beings. As it was said before erosion could be caused by water or wind. Despite the reason is giving erosion the final effect is that the upper layer of the soil is destroyed. It is well known that the upper layer of the soil containing the most of nutrients for the growing the plant. Thus, by damaging upper layer erosion is causing damage to farms and agricultural industry. In addition to upper layer demolition, erosion can create huge holes in the ground so that buildings could be dropped into. As it was mentioned before erosion is a result of impact of water or wind on the soil. In water erosion destruction of the soil are being done by atmospheric waters flow (heavy rain, melt water, etc.). There are few types of water erosion but the results are the same destruction of soil and hole creation. Wind erosion accompanied by movement of the small particles of the soil on huge distance, so that the holes are being created thus damaging plants, buildings etc. At the same time other plants are covered by dust. Main places wind erosion could appear are prairie. Similar to water erosion wind erosion have a different types. On the following section wind erosion types would be discussed.
Main types of wind erosion are suspension, saltation and soil creeping. Suspension is a process, including the lift of the small particles of the soil in the air and moving them to the atmosphere. During this process particles are traveling a hundreds of miles and falling down only when wind is faded.
Fig. 1
On the Fig. 1 are depicted all types of mentioned wind processes. Also suspension process can be seen on the next slide (Fig. 2). Fine particles less than 0.1 mm are involved in this process.
Fig. 2
The next type of wind erosion is saltation. Saltation is the most widespread type of erosion. It consists of lifting larger soil particles compare to suspension. Since particles are bigger the distance and the high of the movement and the lift smaller compare to suspension. Particles are usually lifted on the 30 cm high and falling down in bouncing fashion. Movement in saltation is provided by the short bounces towards the ground. And the sizes of the particles are higher than in suspension and make up to 0.5 mm (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3
Now last but not least soil creeping. Following the same pattern as it was done above, in soil creeping involved even bigger soil particles thus instead of lifting rolling process are involved. Size of the particles varies from 0.5 to 1.0 mm. (Fig. …
