Biocementation Control of Sand against Wind Erosion

Abstract

One-third of the global land area suffers from wind erosion, and its prevention is a critical issue in arid regions of the world. During a wind erosion event, the impacts of saltating grains on the surface cause abrasion of crusted soil surfaces. The topic of this study is to examine the efficiency of sand biocementation to diminish the wind erodibility of an aeolian sand. The erosion rate, number of emitted particles, and flux of the eroded mass from surface (as erodibility indicators) of the biocemented crust, formed by Bacillus megaterium, were measured in a wind tunnel at three different wind velocities; moreover, one extra condition with the presence of impacting particles at the lowest wind velocity was tested. According to the results of the tests, the biocemented crust could provide considerable protection for erodible aeolian sand against wind erosion (without impacting particles), diminishing the sand erodibility indicators by two to four orders of magnitude. However, with the impact of saltating particles, the formed crust could reduce erodibility indicators only by one order of magnitude.