A method to derive long-term coastal wind data from distant weather station to improve aeolian sand transport rate prediction

Abstract

Abstract One of the main factors responsible for foredune development is the magnitude of aeolian sand supply. However, there are still many potential sources of error in its estimation resulting among others from long-term prediction of aeolian sand transport solely based on wind data from distant weather stations. Until now, no study has focused on the biases in these predictions caused by differences in wind data collected by weather stations located outside and within a research area. We aim to resolve the following questions: 1) what is the percentage of valid data lost and non-valid data included in such predictions, 2) what are the boundary conditions to determine the best relationship between wind data obtained from on-site and off-site weather stations, and 3) what is the best method of off-site data transformation to improve the prediction of sand transport rate at the research area. The research was based on 8961 hourly wind data from the reference weather station located at the coast and two nearby inland stations. The aeolian sand transport rate predicted on rough data sets significantly differed between each weather station, with the values from the off-site weather stations being two to ten times higher than those in the on-site weather station, depending on wind direction. The transformation of the inland wind data set was successful only if it was based on the formulae established separately for each direction sector proving that the proposed procedure may produce a data set that best reflects the wind conditions at the study site.