Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

WIND EROSION HAZARD ASSESSMENT USING GIS TECHNIQUES EL-MESRAN AREA, DJELFA WILAYA, ALGERIA

Fakroun Mustapha Fouad and Belaid lyes

Abstract

Soil study is very important in geomorphological studies related to the study of earth’s surface forms, as these qualities decide the soil’s response to various geomorphological processes. The soil varies in Al- Mesrane as a result of the different environment and climatic conditions, where its types vary from north to south, otherwise this soil composition is very similar because it is a calcareous soil in general originated from the fragmentation of rocks, the nature of the soil and its distribution within the study area related to the earth’s surface forms. Soils are directly affected by the climate factor, especially wind, the soil consisting of granules in diameter (0.1-0.15 mm) is the most vulnerable to wind erosion (Chepil and Woodruff) 1993, and soil resistance to wind erosion depends on some soil properties such as soil tissue and moisture in the soil, also to topography and roughness of the soil surface, these factors have overlapping relationships. From Davidson’s point of view, (1989), the main causes of wind erosion are the removal of vegetation in addition to wind speed, by using suitable vegetation cover and increasing soil granules proportion on the surface can control wind erosion, and in this study we only care about wind erosion in its form. Potentially, where they can be reduced when applied to calculate soil loss or sand transportation on the surface, in the absence of vegetation on the soil and these processes are reduced to take into account only the soil erodibility and eolisivity wind sculpture, where it is known as the so-called Potential Wind Erosion (P.W.E), assuming that other factors are equal to one. Soil data and analysis collected to decide its texture, structure, proportion of organic matter, and salinity ratio within the geographic database using Arc-Map functions to extract results.