Paper Title
Assessment of Wind Erosion in Bare and Lucerne-cultivated lands in North Atbara, River Nile State, Sudan

Abstract
The experiment was conducted in two-successive seasons (August 2008- March 2009, August 2009- March 2010). The intensity of wind erosion (IWE) was measured monthly in four directions, namely West (W), North West (NW), North (N), and North East (NE), using vertical (IWE v ) and horizontal soil traps(IWE h ) in a bare and a Lucerne-cultivated land. In the first season, IWE h in the bare land ranged from183.3 (W) to 200 (NE) with a mean of 192.9 tons/ha/day, and a coefficient of variation (CV) of 4%. Furthermore, IWE h ranged from 123.3 (Oct.) to 262 (Aug.) with a CV of 33.2%. The overall mean IWE h and IWE v in the first season were 1.3 and 1.4 fold those in the second season, respectively. In bare lands, the overall mean IWE h was 1.77 and 1.88 fold the corresponding IWE v values in the first and second seasons, respectively. In the cultivated fields the reverse trend was found in the first season, the overall mean of IWE v yielded significantly much higher than that produced by IWE h but in the second season result was inverse with very meager increasing in the overall mean value of IWE h . The ratio IWE v / IWE h of the overall mean values was 1.4 and 0.85 in the first and second seasons, respectively. The IWE h in the bare lands were 47.0 and 45.7 fold that of the cultivated fields in the two successive seasons. Keywords - Intensity of wind erosion; sand traps; Lucerne-cultivated land; River Nile State.