Modelling vegetated dune landscapes
Modelling vegetated dune landscapes
This letter presents a self-organising cellular automaton model capable of simulating the evolution of vegetated dunes with multiple types of plant response in the environment. It can successfully replicate hairpin, or long-walled, parabolic dunes with trailing ridges as well as nebkha dunes with distinctive deposition tails. Quantification of simulated landscapes with eco-geomorphic state variables and subsequent cluster analysis and PCA yields a phase diagram of different types of coastal dunes developing from blow-outs as a function of vegetation vitality. This diagram indicates the potential sensitivity of dormant dune fields to reactivation under declining vegetation vitality, e.g. due to climatic changes. Nebkha simulations with different grid resolutions demonstrate that the interaction between the (abiotic) geomorphic processes and the biological vegetation component (life) introduces a characteristic length scale on the resultant landforms that breaks the typical self-similar scaling of (un-vegetated) bare-sand dunes.
aeolian dunes, vegetation, phase diagram
L06405-[5pp]
Baas, A.C.W.
f7908568-9a2f-4c67-b86d-e02eaa378e79
Nield, J.M.
173be2c5-b953-481a-abc4-c095e5e4b790
23 March 2007
Baas, A.C.W.
f7908568-9a2f-4c67-b86d-e02eaa378e79
Nield, J.M.
173be2c5-b953-481a-abc4-c095e5e4b790
Baas, A.C.W. and Nield, J.M.
(2007)
Modelling vegetated dune landscapes.
Geophysical Research Letters, 34, .
(doi:10.1029/2006GL029152).
Abstract
This letter presents a self-organising cellular automaton model capable of simulating the evolution of vegetated dunes with multiple types of plant response in the environment. It can successfully replicate hairpin, or long-walled, parabolic dunes with trailing ridges as well as nebkha dunes with distinctive deposition tails. Quantification of simulated landscapes with eco-geomorphic state variables and subsequent cluster analysis and PCA yields a phase diagram of different types of coastal dunes developing from blow-outs as a function of vegetation vitality. This diagram indicates the potential sensitivity of dormant dune fields to reactivation under declining vegetation vitality, e.g. due to climatic changes. Nebkha simulations with different grid resolutions demonstrate that the interaction between the (abiotic) geomorphic processes and the biological vegetation component (life) introduces a characteristic length scale on the resultant landforms that breaks the typical self-similar scaling of (un-vegetated) bare-sand dunes.
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Submitted date: 20 December 2006
Published date: 23 March 2007
Keywords:
aeolian dunes, vegetation, phase diagram
Organisations:
Environmental Processes & Change
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Local EPrints ID: 49334
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/49334
ISSN: 0094-8276
PURE UUID: b61f7721-9b8b-4cbd-940d-f88165e35c5c
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Date deposited: 30 Oct 2007
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:56
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Author:
A.C.W. Baas
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