Wind erosion, meteorological and wind profile monitoring in a groundnut field in Bambey, Senegal, 2020-2021 (ENCAS project)

In order to measure horizontal flux of aeolian sediment and the main dynamic parameters (wind erosion threshold, aerodynamic roughness length), a set of instruments was set up in February 2020 in the framework of the ENCAS research project. In a groundnut field of about 100 m x 100 m, we installed 5 anemometers (2 dimensional (2D) sonic anemometers WindSonicTM Gill Instruments Ltd) at 0.25m, 0.66m, 1m, 1.5m, and 1.9m agl, a rain gauge (ARG100 Tipping Bucket rain gauge Campbell® Scientific company), and a Saltiphone, that detects the impacts of saltating grains. All these measurements were performed with 5-minute time resolution. Missing data were rare (less than 1%) over the whole year 2020 for these ENCAS dataset (wind speed and Saltiphone). Simultaneously, horizontal sediment flux was monitored using five masts of 5 sand traps each (Modified Wilson and Cooke – MWAC) set up downwind the main wind directions of the study plot, i.e. at its southwestern corner. The sand-traps were set up at heights of 0.05m, 0.1m, 0.2m, 0.4m, 0.8m agl. They were regularly collected (approximately every 2 weeks) and their content was weighed with 1 mg precision. The groundnut field was made bare and tilled during February 2020; wind speed (sand traps) measurements started on February 22nd (24th). Then, groundnut was cropped during the rainy season (short-cycle cultivar, sown on July 8th and 20th because of labor availability, and harvested on October 26th).