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Arid Land Geography ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (3): 792-801.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2021.393

• Earth Surface Process • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Aeolian sand activity characteristics of wind erosion and desertification in the grassland area of central Mongolia: A case of Choir City

CUI Kejun1,2,3,4,5(),LI Shengyu1,2,3,4,5,FAN Jinglong1,2,4,5,WANG Haifeng1,2,3,5,MENG Xiaoyu1,2,3,4,5,MIAO Jiamin1,2,3,4,5,LYU Zhentao()   

  1. 1. National Engineering Technology Research Center for Desert-Oasis Ecological Construction, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
    2. State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, Xinjiang, China
    3. Mosuowan Desert Research Station, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shihezi 832000, Xinjiang, China
    4. Taklimakan Desert Research Station, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Korla 841000, Xinjiang, China
    5. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2021-09-03 Revised:2021-11-04 Online:2022-05-25 Published:2022-05-31
  • Contact: Zhentao LYU E-mail:464509354@qq.com;lishy_hb@163.com

Abstract:

Desertification is known to be the “cancer of the earth”. Mongolia is a country with the most serious desertification in the world. The desertified land in Mongolia is still expanding, and the central region is an important new expansion area. The frequent dust storms have caused serious harm and are a great threat to infrastructure connectivity, energy and resource base construction, ecological security, and environmental health and have become a major hurdle limiting Mongolia’s socio-economic development and ecological security. Choir City, the capital of Gobi Sumber Province, is located in the central part of Mongolia. It is an important section of the Mongolian Plateau of the China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor. It belongs to the mixed zone of grassland, dry grassland, and desert grassland. It is sensitive to natural and human disturbance and has serious wind erosion desertification. In this study, the wind dynamic conditions for the occurrence of local wind erosion desertification were examined using observations from the self-built automatic meteorological observatory (May 2019—July 2020) and the meteorological station of Choir City (1990—2018) and the sand collector (August 2019—August 2020). The results showed that (1) there were strong wind dynamic conditions for the occurrence of wind erosion desertification in the region. The annual sand drift potential was 735.96 VU, the resultant sand drift potential was 428.76 VU, and the resultant drift direction was SSW (195.06°). The wind direction variability index was 0.58, which belonged to the high wind energy environment with a moderate rate of variation-blunted double-peak wind conditions. (2) The critical wind speed was affected by soil moisture and vegetation coverage, which varied with seasons: it was the highest in summer and the lowest in winter, and spring and autumn are in the middle. (3) Because of the strong wind dynamic conditions and degraded surface, the sediment transport flux of aeolian sand flow was very high (2.135 t·m-1·a-1) in Choir City. The maximum sediment transport rate model developed by Owen was suitable for the simulation of aeolian sand flow in this area. This study presented a detailed analysis of wind dynamic conditions in Choir City, located in the central desert steppe region of Mongolia. The characteristics of critical starting winds in Choir City were analyzed in each season by combining soil moisture and particle size, vegetation conditions, and other factors to identify the wind dynamic basis and related influencing factors in the central steppe region of Mongolia and provide basic data for local wind and sand disaster control. The research results could provide an important reference for desertification control, ecological restoration, and local engineering construction in the desert steppe area of central Mongolia.

Key words: wind erosion desertification, wind condition, sand-driving wind, sand drift potential, sand transport volume