National Land Erosion Inventory (2002-2019). Wind erosion

This Inventory aims to locate, quantify and analyse the evolution of erosive phenomena, with the ultimate aim of delimiting as accurately as possible the priority areas of action in the fight against erosion, as well as defining and evaluating the actions to be carried out, within the plans and programmes whose elaboration is also attributed by Royal Decree 1415/2000, establishing the organizational structure of the Ministry of the Environment. The realisation of the Inventory is structured with a provincial base in order to be able to take advantage and use the most recent information that is generated both in the National Forestry Inventory (IFN) and in the Forest Map of Spain 1:50000 (MFE50) works also carried out by this General Directorate and elaborated at provincial level. In Spain wind erosion does not have the importance it reaches in other parts of the world, but there are some areas where it manifests with a certain intensity. A serious and complete study of soil erosion in Spain must adequately contemplate this phenomenon of wind erosion throughout the national territory. The methodology that was followed for this study was an adaptation of that developed in the publication “Methods for the study of wind erosion” (1991) by J. Quirantes Puertas, of the Experimental Station of Zaidín (C.S.I.C.). The areas with the highest risk of wind erosion were established, based on the following characteristics: wind, slope, vegetation and soil. The slope factor was used to define the scope of study, which was reduced to the so-called deflation areas, characterised by a slope of less than 10 % and a minimum area of 2.500 ha. The wind factor, within the deflation areas, was extracted from the National Wind Map of the State Meteorological Agency, at a scale of 1:1,000,000. For vegetation and soil factors, within the deflation areas, the strata map used for the calculation of laminar erosion was used, characterised by field data, including data from soil sample analyses that, in deflation areas, included the analysis of active limestone, necessary to determine soil susceptibility to wind erosion. With the risk of wind erosion the territory is classified according to the levels of wind erosion. The inventory is carried out between the years 2002-2019