Wind Erosion in Western Queensland Australia

Chapter 8 – Conclusionsland use characteristics to the rangelands in India, Africa and North America. The complexinteractions found between climate and land erodibility dynamics in the four bioregions ofwestern Queensland highlight the importance of pursuing global research into land erodibilityin other rangelands environments. The research did not seek to quantify relationshipsbetween land management and model assessments of land erodibility. This was becauseresearch is first required to better quantify climate-land erodibility interactions, which isdependent on the ability to model temporal changes in soil erodibility. Parameterisation ofsoil erodibility models must therefore be a priority for future research.4. There is a lack of quantitative models to predict temporal changes in soil erodibility towind. Soil erodibility is a fundamental control on wind erosion and so this issue affectsany research that seeks to model wind erosion processes.This thesis has presented a framework for modelling temporal changes in soil erodibility. Theframework draws on relationships between soil aggregation, surface crusting, climatevariability and land management pressures (Chapter 4). Application of the model wasrestricted by the lack of quantitative research into soil erodibility-climate-managementinteractions. The thesis has provided a review of current research in this area and haspresented a summary of future research priorities that will enable parameterisation of themodel and its integration into existing models to assess wind erosion processes.5. There is a growing requirement to learn more about the sensitivity of rangelands toclimate variability and land management pressures in light of uncertain future climatechange. Assessing the landscape susceptibility to land degradation processes like winderosion is an essential component of this research.This thesis has made a significant contribution to the body of knowledge about wind erosionin rangeland environments. This contribution includes the development of models andmethods to assess soil and land erodibility, and the application of these to generate newinformation on land erodibility dynamics in western Queensland. The research has providednew information on the sensitivity of the western Queensland rangelands to potential landdegradation as influenced by climate variability. The information generated from the researchrelates to processes at the landscape to regional scales. Outcomes of the research therefore196