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ARS Home » Plains Area » Lubbock, Texas » Cropping Systems Research Laboratory » Wind Erosion and Water Conservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #58613
Title: AERODYNAMIC ROUGHNESS PREDICTION FROM SOIL SURFACE ROUGHNESS MEASUREMENT

Author
item SALEH, ALI - 6208-05-20
item Fryrear, Donald
item Bilbro Jr, James

Submitted to: American Society of Agri Engineers Special Meetings and Conferences Papers
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/1/1997
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Wind erosion causes significant damage to crops and results in related health problems around the world. To prevent wind erosion, many factors should be known. One important factor is soil surface aerodynamic roughness, or as it is known, "Zo". Knowledge of Zo helps us to better understand the soil surface relation with blowing wind. This study provides a simple procedure to estimate Zo. The Zo values obtained from this procedures will be used in wind erosion models.

Technical Abstract: Knowledge of aerodynamic roughness (Zo) is essential in estimating wind erosion. Equations were developed to predict Zo from soil surface roughness (oriented and random). Surface microrelief roughness was measured in the field and expressed by Weibull scale coefficient (B) and with chain method. Aerodynamic roughness was obtained from wind profiles. As soil roughness increased Zo increased. A polynomial equation (R2=0.954 P<0.001) was obtained by regressing the Zo on the B coefficient, random roughness values measured by the chain method with ridges effect as expressed by Kr (4(ridge spacing2/ridge height)) values. Predicted Zo from developed equations matched significantly (R2=0.952, P<0.001) with those reported in the literature.