Excerpt
ALTHOUGH the Dust Bowl of the 1930s had a significant influence on the adoption of national conservation programs, wind erosion generally has been perceived as a regional problem occurring only during periods of drought in the Great Plains. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) resources have been directed primarily toward water erosion prediction and control. Development and use of the wind erosion equation (WEQ) has taken place in this setting.
More recently, awareness has developed that wind erosion is also a problem of national scope. Wind erosion is now a recognized problem, in several areas outside the Great Plains, including the sandy and organic soils of the Great Lakes region, the sands of the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plain, the Columbia River plateau, and parts of the Southwest. In higher rainfall areas, the most serious problems occur where low-residue crops are grown on erodible soils that dry rapidly at the surface.
Early wind erosion research
Early U.S. and Canadian wind erosion research sought to understand erosion processes and develop workable methods of control (3, 4). Stubble mulching investigations, for example, were being conducted at 16 research locations in the 17 western states as early as 1957 (9). Although …
Footnotes
M. Scott Argabright is a conservation agronomist with the Midwest National Technical Center, Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508-3866.
- Copyright 1991 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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