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Wind Erosion Histories

SNAP-SHOT:

Wind Erosion Histories provide a wind erosion record for locations within NRM regions across Australia, from 1960 to 2008. View the Wind Erosion Histories.

Wind Erosion Rankings show the Top 20 eroded locations, year by year (1960-2008). View the Wind Erosion Rankings.

The big picture of wind erosion

Long term wind erosion histories are available for 110 meteorological stations located within 63 Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions. For each location, an overall picture of the history of wind erosion is given as a bar graph. The graph shows the annual total dust concentration (µg/m³) measured each year from 1960 to 2008. Dust concentrations in the air are an indicator of wind erosion.

The colours of the graph indicate the quantity of data available for each year- we call this the Record Completeness. The Wind Erosion Histories were formulated using Bureau of Meteorology observation data. The data record is not always perfect. Some years may have a full record of observations (up to 8 observations per day), and other years have less (as little as one or zero observations per day). This means that some dust levels may have been overlooked. The Record Completeness has been calculated for each year, and classed into five categories of completeness.

Record completeness categories:

n       0 – 20% complete

n       21 – 40% complete

n       41 – 60% complete

n       61 – 80% complete

n       81 – 100% complete

Ranking stations by their dust levels

Wind Erosion Rankings identify the stations with the highest wind erosion for each year, 1960-2008. The stations listed are those with a Record Completeness of 61-100% and are ranked in order of the Top 20 highest dust concentration levels. Also given are the Top 3 locations with the highest dust concentration levels but a Record Completeness of less than 60%.

NRM agencies from a national to regional level can use this information to identify long terms trends of wind erosion in their NRM region, and assess the scale of the problem in a national context. The data can also be used to assist in identifying areas for Caring for our Country (C4oC) investments.

Find your NRM region

To read more about the project, read our Executive Summary.

The Wind Erosion Histories and Wind Erosion Rankings are presented alongside the CEMSYS Modelled Data for NRM regions. Read more about CEMSYS Modelled Data.

Acknowledgements

Participants: Professor Grant McTainsh, Dr Craig Strong and Dr John Leys. Technical support provided by Mr Kenn Tews, Ms Michelle Baker and Mr Kyle Barton.
 
This project is supported by Griffith University and DECCW through funding from the Australian Government's Caring for our Country (C4OC).

Timeframe: February-August 2009.

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How to read the data  

To begin, view the Wind Erosion Histories by clicking an NRM region on the map.

The graphs below are the Wind Erosion History for the Birdsville station in the Desert Channels NRM region.

The record completeness graph illustrates the variation in the number of observations made over the years 1960 to 2008. You can see that 1998 to 2000 has data that is about 85% complete. In all other years, the record is fairly poor (mostly only 25% complete), which means that the data is based on only 2 observations per day instead of 8.

Look now at the Total Dust Concentration for Birdsville. There are two major dust years which have similar dust concentrations: 1970 and 1994.

In 1970, the total dust concentration was 170 646 µg/m³. Given that the record completeness for that year was fairly poor (23%), this total concentration is a very conservative value, and the real value may have been much greater.  

Compare this to 1994, with a total dust concentration of 176 558 µg/m³. The high record completeness (85%) indicates that the dust concentration is a fairly accurate picture of the dust experienced in that year.

How do these dust levels compare on a national scale? Look at the Wind Erosion Rankings.

Click the small map and return to the main page. Enter the year 1970 and click Go.

As you scan down the list, Birdsville does not appear until the bottom, as the Top 3 ranking for stations with a low record completeness. However, when you compare the total dust concentration of 170 646 µg/m³ to the other stations above, it’s clear that Birdsville experienced one of the highest, if not the highest, levels of dust in that year.

Do the same for 1994. The Wind Erosion Ranking in 1994 places Birdsville, this time with record completeness at 85%, at the top.

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Executive Summary (extract)

The Leys Report on wind and water erosion monitoring (Leys et al. 2008) recommended that reporting on the extent and severity of wind erosion across Australia would be assisted by: producing long term wind erosion histories for Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions.

Section 2 provides long term wind erosion histories (1960-2008) from meteorological records at 121 Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) stations across Australia stored in the Dust Event Database (DEDB) at Griffith University. The level of wind erosion activity at a station is measured by converting minimum daily visibility data into dust concentrations using a Visibility-Dust Concentration Model (V-DC Model) (McTainsh et al., 2008). Wind erosion histories based upon total annual dust concentrations are provided for the 121 BoM stations, representing 63 NRM regions and subregions (in NT and WA), over 49 years. The visibility records which are the source of the dust concentration data, are collected a maximum of eight times per day, however observation frequencies at a station can change through time which can reduce the completeness of the wind erosion record. Information on record completeness (RC) has been provided by colour-coding the wind erosion histories for each station, as guide for the reader.

The NRM regions have been ranked according to wind erosion activity recorded over the period 1960-2008. The ranking of NRM regions is based upon the total annual dust concentration of the highest recording station within a region and the overall NRM region ranking is based upon the number of years a region is in the top ten.

The six highest NRM regions (in diminishing order) are: the Arid Centre subregion (NT), the South West (Qld), the Mallee (VIC), the Desert Channels (Qld), the Rangelands–Goldfields subregion (WA), and Eyre Peninsula (SA).

The BoM station with the highest total dust concentration for the 49 years is Birdsville, followed by Alice Springs and Thargomindah. However, as the average record completeness at Birdsville and Thargomindah is around 40% compared with >90% at Alice Springs, the two Queensland stations could in fact be assumed much more dusty.

NRM regions and stations within them are also ranked in each of the 49 years. For example, in 1965 wind erosion was clearly the most active at Alice Springs, NT (Arid Centre subregion), followed by Cobar, NSW (Western) and Charleville, Qld (South West). Whereas, in 1985, erosion activity was highest at Ceduna, SA (Eyre Peninsula), followed closely by Alice Springs and Tennant Creek, NT (Arid Centre subregion).

Wind erosion histories of all stations in each NRM region are presented as histograms, and the record completeness for each year summarised with colour coding. These histories provide valuable new information on temporal and spatial aspects of erosion within NRM regions. For example, in the Desert Channels region (Qld) the temporal trend shows a strong relationship between wind erosion and

the drought years of the 1960s, the mid-1990s and 2002-3. The mid-1990s appears to have been almost as active as the 1960s, however when the low record completeness (21-40%) of the 1960s is taken into account, it is clear that the 1960s was a much more active period. There is also a clear spatial pattern of very active erosion in the Desert Channels stations (Birdsville and Boulia), compared with the lower erosion stations further east.

Source: McTainsh, G.H., Strong, C.L. & Leys, J.F. (2009). Wind erosion histories, model input data and community DustWatch. Final Report. Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.  367 pp.