University of Southern Queensland Law, Religion, and Heritage Research Program Team
Abstract
The Wind Erosion Extent and Severity Maps (WEESMAP) project for Australia has been completed. As a result of the project significant improvements were made to both the soil and vegetation input data. These improvements include:
• A new dynamic erodibility mask was created for the model,based on Fractional Cover Index (FCI) of Guerschman et al. (2009).
• Increasing the soil descriptions available from 12 to 29 soils.
• Replacing LAI GIS layer with the MODIS LAI layer, which no longer uses empirical relationships developed for AVHRR NDVI product.
• The model was extend to a 10km resolution for the whole of the continent.
Statistical comparison of the CEMSYS model before (Version 5) and after the soil/vegetation improvements (Version 6) shows that the model over estimated daily dust concentrations at 26 of the DustWatch nodes in 2009 by approximately 3 fold for V5 and underestimated it by 0.6 for V6. The mean error between modelled and observed dust levels was reduced for V6 (0.0227 to 0.0084). Finally V6 explained twice the level of variability in the observed data compared to V5 (0.2292 to 0.3956). Given the result was comparing 26 stations over 365 days, V6 appears extremely robust over the yearly period.
In addition, the time series of available data was extended significantly. At the end of the project data the following data is available:
• Version 650 km data is available from March2000–June2012.
• Version 510 km dat is available for NSW/Victoria from February2000–June2012.
• Version 610 km data is available nationally for 2002,2008,and 2009.
Finally several other coding improvements were made to the model to increase performance. Consequently, it is now possible to produce 50 km and 10 km maps within 10 days of the external MODIS and Atmospheric data becoming available. This means it is now possible to use the CEMSYS in monthly reporting products
