Towards a Pan-European Assessment of Land Susceptibility to Wind Erosion

Understanding spatial and temporal patterns in land susceptibility to wind erosion is essential to design effective management strategies to control land degradation. The knowledge about the land surface susceptible to wind erosion in European contexts shows significant gaps. The lack of researches, particularly at the landscape to regional scales, prevents national and European institutions from taking actions aimed at an effective mitigating of land degradation. This study provides a preliminary pan-European assessment that delineates the spatial patterns of land susceptibility to wind erosion and lays the groundwork for future modelling activities. An Index of Land Susceptibility to Wind Erosion (ILSWE) was created by combining spatiotemporal variations of the most influential wind erosion factors (i.e. climatic erosivity, soil erodibility, vegetation cover and landscape roughness). The sensitivity of each input factor was ranked according to fuzzy logic techniques. State-of-the-art findings within the literature on soil erodibility and land susceptibility were used to evaluate the outcomes of the proposed modelling activity. Results show that the approach is suitable for integrating wind erosion information and environmental factors. Within the 34 European countries under investigation, moderate and high levels of land susceptibility to wind erosion were predicted, ranging from 25·8 to 13·0Mha, respectively (corresponding to 5·3 and 2·9% of total area). New insights into the geography of wind erosion susceptibility in Europe were obtained and provide a solid basis for further investigations into the spatial variability and susceptibility of land to wind erosion across Europe.