Related papers: Vegetation against dune mobility
Beautiful dune patterns can be found in deserts and along coasts due to the instability of a plain sheet of sand under the action of the wind. Barchan dunes are highly mobile aeolian dunes found in areas of low sand availability and…
The engineering interest about dune fields is dictated by the their interaction with a number of human infrastructures in arid environments. Sand dunes dynamics is dictated by wind and its ability to induce sand erosion, transport and…
Dune fields are commonly associated with periodic patterns that are among the most recognizable landscapes on Earth and other planetary bodies. However, in zones of limited sediment supply, where periodic dunes elongate and align in the…
Sand dunes are ubiquitous in nature, and are found in abundance on Earth and other planetary environments. One of the most common types are crescent-shaped dunes known as barchans, whose mid-line could be assumed to behave as 2D dunes. In…
We propose a model to study the spatiotemporal dynamics of biocrust and vegetation cover on sand dunes. The model consists of two coupled partial nonlinear differential equations and includes diffusion and advection terms for modeling the…
Wind topographically forced by hills and sand dunes accelerates on the upwind (stoss) slopes and reduces on the downwind (lee) slopes. This secondary wind regime, however, possesses a subtle effect, reported here for the first time from…
In landscape-scale experiments at the edge of the Gobi desert, we show that various dune types develop simultaneously under natural wind conditions. Using 4 years of high-resolution topographic data, we demonstrate that, depending on sand…
Barchans are crescent-shaped sand dunes forming in aride regions with unidirectional wind and limited sand supply. We report analytical and numerical results for dune shapes under different environmental conditions as obtained from the…
The wavelength at which a dune pattern emerges from a flat sand bed is controlled by the sediment transport saturation length, which is the length needed for the sand flux to adapt to a change of wind strength. The influence of the wind…
The dependence of the barchan dune dynamics on the size of the grains involved is investigated experimentally. Downsized barchan dune slices are observed in a narrow water flow tube. The relaxation time from an initial symmetric triangular…
Modern dune fields are valuable sources of information for the large-scale analysis of terrestrial and planetary environments and atmospheres, but their study relies on understanding the small-scale dynamics that constantly generate new…
In zones of loose sand, wind-blown sand dunes emerge due the linear instability of a flat sedimentary bed. This instability has been studied in experiments and numerical models but rarely in the field, due to the large time and length…
Desert surfaces are typically non uniform, with individual sand dunes generally surrounded by gravel or non-erodible beds. Similarly, beaches vary in composition and moisture that enhances cohesion between the grains. These bed…
Our aim in this note is to introduce and study a mathematical model for the description of traveling sand dunes. We use surface flow process of sand under the effect of wind and gravity. We model this phenomena by a non linear…
The collision processes of two crescentic dunes called barchans are systematically studied using a simple computer simulation model. The simulated processes, coalescence, ejection and reorganization, qualitatively correspond to those…
Psammophilous plants are special plants that flourish in sand moving environments. There are two main mechanisms by which the wind affects these plants: (i) sand drift exposes roots and covers branches--the exposed roots turn into new…
Aeolian transport in coastal areas can be significantly affected by the presence of an exposed water table. In some dune fields, such as in Len\c{c}\'ois Maranhenses, northeastern Brazil, the water table oscillates in response to seasonal…
Although riparian vegetation is present in or along many water courses of the world, its active role resulting from the interaction with flow and sediment processes has only recently become an active field of research. Especially, the role…
In work with a variety of co-authors, Staver and Levin have argued that savanna and forest coexist as alternative stable states with discontinuous changes in density of trees at the boundary. Here we formulate a nonhomogeneous spatial model…
This article explores the dynamics of savanna ecosystems with grazing, browsing, and migration effects. Covering over one-eighth of the Earth's land area and supporting about one-fifth of the global population, the savanna is an ecological…