A SOURCE-BASED MODEL FOR DESCRIBING DUST CONCENTRATIONS DURING WIND EROSION EVENTS - AN INITIAL STUDY

Wind erosion is a broad-scale process in inland Australia. When condit ions are conducive to wind erosion, dust storms can entrain fine sedim ent over large areas of the continent; however, closer examination ind icates that dust source areas are often spatially discrete. The fine s ediment entrained from these sources is transported as dust plumes whi ch may coalesce at some point downwind. Current mathematical models us ed in Australia lack the ability to describe spatial variations in con centration within the plume and cannot describe the effect different l and types have on the resulting plume (i.e. they are unable to describ e the effects that changes in local environmental conditions have on t he dust plume). DUSTRAN, the model described here, attempts to overcom e these issues. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd