Wind erosion has become a very serious environmental, agricultural, and social problem in arid and semiarid regions such as the agro-pastoral ecotone, North China. Wind erosion is caused by near-surface interaction of wind turbulence and soil particles. Numerous factors influence it, such as wind velocity, precipitation, and temperature; their interplay contributes to the complex height variation of wind turbulence and particle distribution. To determine the spatial distribution of the saltation particles, we used a field experiment using a passive sediment collector and a laboratory experiment using a push-type wind tunnel coupled with particle composition measurements. Based on the principle of maximum entropy, a new model is proposed to describe the distribution of saltation particles moved by wind turbulence. By comparing the model results with both the field experimental data and the data from the indoor wind tunnel, the model was validated. The results showed that the maximum entropy principle is suitable to model the processes governing sediment particle density and lays a solid foundation to describe the coupling dynamics of wind-sand movement.
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