LAND DEGRADATION INDUCED BY WIND EROSION IN WESTERN SAHEL (Senegal) – LANDWIND

The central approach consists of first developing modeling tools for past decades in order to verify their robustness before simulating future decades.
To this end, the following questions must be addressed (see Figure 1): (Q1) How much do the agro-pastoral practices affect wind erosion in Sahelian Senegal? (Q2) How much does wind erosion affect soil fertility? (Q3) How have agro-pastoral practices evolved in Sahelian Senegal during the last decades (1960-2020), and how could they

The main highlight, so far, of the LANDWIND project is the realization of a set of measurements bringing together meteorological variables (rain, wind, temperature, radiation), characteristics of the vegetation (mass, height, rate of cover) and wind erosion (horizontal flux of aeolian sediments) for 1 year (2022-2023) on 4 adjoining fallows in the Senegalese groundnut basin region (near Bambey). These variables were monitored with good temporal resolution (respectively 5 minutes, 1 week, and 2 weeks) and will therefore allow us to establish relationships that will be extrapolated to all the fallows in the Senegalese Sahel. In addition, the comparison between these fallows will allow us to distinguish the effect of different agropastoral practices on wind erosion (the 4 plots having the same meteorological conditions). Finally, a new field mission took place in June 2023 to move the instruments to 4 millet fields, also adjoining, for the continuation of the measurement campaigns. This mission involved 3 participants (from UMR iEES-Paris), showing the aggregation of colleagues in our fields around our common scientific interests.

Continuation of the work announced (see report).

Impact of land use and management on wind erosion in agricultural plots in sahelian Senegal, Paul-Alain Raynal et al., International Conference on Aeolian Erosion (ICAR), Las Cruces, US, juillet 2023 – accepted for an oral communication

Modélisation de la croissance et du rendement de l’arachide (Arachis hypogaea L.) en milieu tropical : cas du bassin arachidier du Sénégal, Jean-Alain Civil, 2022, Mémoire de M2, Institut AgroMontpellier, 74p.

Wind erosion is a major process in the functioning of the critical zone in semi-arid areas, especially in the Sahel where climate variability and demographic growth are large. Wind erosion can induce land degradation due to nutrients losses in source areas. Yet, this effect is not quantified today. LANDWIND aims at estimating the land degradation induced by wind erosion in Western Sahel (Senegal) during the future decades. For that purpose, we will rely on a modelling approach to address the following questions: How much do agropastoral practices in Sahelian Senegal affect wind erosion? How much does wind erosion affect soil fertility? How have agropastoral practices evolved in Sahelian Senegal during the last decades, and how could they evolve in the coming ones? How has wind erosion affected soil fertility during the last decades, and what will be its future impact during the coming ones? LANDWIND will thus contribute to the assessment of future soil fertility in the Sahel.