Quantification of deflation-induced soil loss on chernozems: Field protocol and sediment trap development based on wind tunnel experiments

Today, chernozem soils under intensive cultivation have also become sensitive to deflation. The deflation sensitivity of an area can be characterised by trapping the material transported away from a specific area during a wind event. For this purpose, numerous sediment sampling tools are used in international research. Sediment traps aim to analyse the accurate quantitative and qualitative parameters of aeolian sediment (both finer and coarser fractions) and study aeolian processes and their intensity. The types of samplers used for sampling aeolian sediment will vary depending upon the sediment type to be measured. Our earlier field experiments on chernozem soils showed that sediment traps (such as MWAC, BSNE, SUSTRA, POLCA) developed for sandy soils and recommended by the international literature do not work with proper efficiency on loamy and clay soils with degraded texture. One of our main objectives was to develop a suitable trapping device (WAST: Wet Active Sediment Trap), an active horizontal trap that can sample at different heights, is an isokinetic, wet sediment trap, and has a good efficiency in all substantial particle size ranges. We conducted the efficiency analyses with an MWAC sediment trap, which appear to be the most popular for sediment moving field studies. The combined use of the field wind tunnel, the field platform scale placed under the wind tunnel, as well as the WAST trap, which sampled at three different heights and was positioned in the outlet opening of the wind tunnel, made it possible to estimate soil loss induced by various wind events more accurately and more efficiently. The efficiency of the WAST trapping device proved to be three times more on average than that of the MWAC trapping device when sampling loamy soils. The median calculated for the efficiency values is 27% for the MWAC and 87% for the WAST.