Wind Erosion Assessment in Austria Using Wind Erosion Equation and GIS

Soil erosion by wind is a serious problem in many parts of Europe and leads to degradation of the resource soil. In order to achieve sustainable land use, tools to identify problem areas and to evaluate environmental sound management practices are needed and necessary. Until now no wind erosion measurements have been carried out in Austria. For the fist time assessment of soil erosion by wind has been done for an appr. 20 km2 large area in eastern Austrias cropland. Based on the limited available data and their temporal and spatial distribution the Wind Erosion Equation WEQ was chosen as simulation model. The WEQ was incorporated into a vector oriented GIS (ArcView) which was also used for data management, manipulation and analysis. Calculated erosion rates from individual fields ranged from 0 to 5.4 t ha yr with an average annual soil loss of 2.4 t ha. Although no measured data are available to validate the simulation model, results seem to be reasonable. The described approach is able to assess soil erosion risk by wind on a regional scale and to evaluate soil protection strategies. In combination with R/USLE this tool will be able to identify potential wind and water erosion risk areas.