A Comparative Review of Wind-Blown Dust Emission Models

Wind-blown dust emission models have used different physics-based schemes to simulate the wind erosion process. The parameters required to predict the amount of dust emission were determined using the results of various experiments. The differences between the existing models depend on how the detailed wind erosion process is interpreted. In general, the determination of dust emission due to wind erosion consists of four steps: the determination of dust source regions, the calculation of the threshold friction velocity, the calculation of saltation flux, and the calculation of sandblasting flux. The threshold friction velocity reflects more accurate regional characteristics by taking into account the soil moisture effect and the drag partitioning effect owing to roughness elements. We analysed how the wind erosion interpretation method has changed from the early models to the latest models and summarized the features of each model and the differences among the models. We present the limitations of the existing models that hinder their application to East Asia and how recent models try to resolve these limitations. The new methodologies used in the latest models that can predict the amount of dust emission accurately by accounting for the surface characteristics more systematically need to be tested for the prediction of wind-blown dust emission in East Asia.