Dynamics of wind erosion and impact of vegetation cover and land use in the Sahel: A case study on sandy dunes in southeastern Niger

摘要

In the Sahel, wind erosion increases the vulnerability of sandy soil through the removal of the finest and most fertile fraction of the soil, including nutrients, potentially limiting vegetation development. To provide experimental evidence of the role of different land uses on wind erosion, measurements of horizontal sand fluxes and associated meteorological parameters were taken for four years in Kilakina (southeast of Niger), where large rangeland surfaces coexist with cultivated surfaces and moving dunes in a typical Sahelian semiarid regime (average annual precipitation in the order of +/- 300 nun yr(-1)). The horizontal sand fluxes were monitored using BSNE sediment traps on the three sandy surfaces representative of the main land uses in the region: a cultivated field, a pastured land and a mobile dune. In addition, a meteorological station was installed to monitor the wind speed and direction and rainfall.