A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON THE ROLE OF SMALL-SCALE WIND GUSTINESS IN AEOLIAN SAND TRANSPORT

Estimates of aeolian sand transport generally use an average wind speed to assess the wind energy. To determine if variation in small-scale wind gustiness (on the order of several seconds duration) has a significant effect on sand movement, detailed field measurements were made of wind speed and transport rate. Average wind speed and several gust parameters were derived from the wind data. The results indicate that small-scale gust information does not improve prediction of transport rates.