Impact of Land Cover on Wind Erosion in Arid Regions: A Case Study in Southern Tunisia

Abstract

Wind erosion is a worldwide phenomenon for which several recent studies have shown that the intensity is expected to evolve because of climate and land use changes. Identifying the areas where wind erosion is the most active and its associated drivers may help to define efficient solutions to protect the environment from this hazard. The south of Tunisia is a region highly prone to wind erosion and presents a variety of landscapes and land uses in a relatively small area. Thus, from November 2012 to June 2016, six sites were instrumented to monitor wind erosion in the most extended land uses existing in southern Tunisia. The main results are that wind erosion: (i) is nil in the oasis, (ii) is weak (−1 yr−1) in the olive grove even if the surface is be ploughed up to eight times a year, (iii) is moderate (~1000 kg m−1 yr−1) in the barley field, for which the sowing date is a driving parameter of wind erosion seasonality, (iv) can occur in the Chott El Jerid except when it is flooded, (v) is the most intense in rangelands on sand (~2500 kg m−1 yr−1) and on flatbeds (>3000 kg m−1 yr−1).

Keywords

• wind erosion
• landscape
• land use
• arid climate
• southern Tunisia