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The significance of Gobi desert surfaces for dust emissions in China: an experimental study

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Abstract

A series of experiments to determine the direct emission of dust-sized particles from Gobi surfaces by clean wind (wind without sand), and the potential for aeolian abrasion of Gobi surfaces and beds of gravel and mobile sand to produce fine (<100 μm) and dust-sized (<10 μm, PM10) particles under sand-laden winds were conducted. Parent material was obtained from Gobi areas of the Ala Shan Plateau, the region with high dust emissions in arid China. The fine particles produced by aeolian processes were collected using sand traps and sieved the captured materials to exclude particles >100 μm in diameter and then PM10 by sedimentation was acquired. The Gobi surface provided most of the emitted fine particles during the initial dust emission processes, but subsequently, release of the clay coatings of particles by abrasion becomes the dominant source of fine materials. Under sand-laden winds, PM10 production rates produced by aeolian abrasion of Gobi surfaces ranged between 0.002 and 0.244% of blown materials. After removal of sand, silt, or clay with low resistance to erosion from the Gobi surfaces by the wind, the PM10 production rates caused by aeolian abrasion were similar to those from gravel and sand beds. The results also indicated that after the dust-sized particles with low resistance to erosion were removed, the production of dust-sized particles was unrelated to wind velocity. Under aeolian processes, Gobi deserts in this region therefore play a major role in dust emissions from arid and semiarid China.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40871012). We thank Professor Aiguo Zhao (Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for his advice on the construction of the aeolian sand trap, and Mr. Hong Li for his operation of the wind tunnel. We thank Mr. Geoff Hart for his detailed edits of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Xunming Wang, Caixia Zhang, Hongtao Wang, Guangqiang Qian, Wanyin Luo, Junfeng Lu & Li Wang

  2. College of Resources Science and Technology, Bei**g Normal University, Bei**g, 100875, China

    Xunming Wang

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  1. Xunming Wang
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Correspondence to Xunming Wang.

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Wang, X., Zhang, C., Wang, H. et al. The significance of Gobi desert surfaces for dust emissions in China: an experimental study. Environ Earth Sci 64, 1039–1050 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-011-0922-2

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