Effects of Compound Sand Barrier for Habitat Restoration on Sediment Grain-size Distribution in Ulan Buh Desert

Abstract

AbstractWind erosion is a huge challenge for ecologists to stabilize sand dunes and to change them into stable productive ecosystems. In order to better understand its role in the process of ecological restoration, the sediment grain-size characteristics of compound sand barrier were evaluated through field experimental observation. The results indicated that the compound sand barrier was mainly composed of extremely fine sand and fine sand, and the fine sand and extremely fine sand in the inner side were higher than the east and west sides of the compound sand barrier. Due to the blocking effect of compound sand barrier, the Sorting Coefficient became better, the Skewness belonged to the positive deviation and the Kurtosis presented leptokurtosis distribution. Moreover, while the cumulative frequency distribution curve in the inner side became steeper, the slope increased and reached the top of the curve ahead of time. The effect of wind environment and vegetation coverage on the surface sediments showed that the average annual wind velocity and vegetation coverage was negatively correlated with the average grain-size, but positively correlated with the Sorting Coefficient. There was a significant correlation among the annual wind speed, vegetation coverage, average grain-size and Sorting Coefficient, which indicated that vegetation coverage and wind environment was the key factor leading to the difference of surface sediments in this area. Collectively, the establishment of compound sand barrier is one of the most effective methods of sand-fixing with engineering measure in the arid desert regions. Therefore, given the complexities of agricultural systems, stubble retention and black film covered during harvesting and incorporation of the stubble into soil in the next spring appears to be the best choice in the dry northern China where farmlands suffer serious wind erosion.