Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

LaSWE is a monitoring system that monitors the land susceptibility to wind erosion in the Eastern Africa Region. Environmental monitoring and conservation is part of the sustainable development goal towards achieving sustainable environmental management. This is achieved through development of verifiable methods on wind erosion modelling, while intergrating factors such as, the one listed below:

Climate Erosivity Factor (CE)

Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC)

Soil Roughness Factor (SR)

Erodible Fraction Factor (EF)

Soil Crust Factor (SC)

The above factors are the products visualised in LaSWE system

Get in touch with the team

To get in touch with RCMRD team and developers, please contact the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD).

Who are the authors and implementors of this system and products?

LaSWE system was implemented by RCMRD under the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security & Africa(GMES & Africa) project. A project co-funded by the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU). The project was implemented through a consultancy and patnership with LocateIT Limited.

What is Wind Erosion

Wind Erosion is the systematic soil particle movement by wind force. Others have defined it as soil abrasion caused by the erosive force of wind, which varies in degree, based on the amount of soil particles transported either through saltation, creeping and suspension.

How many factors did you consider during modelling and why?

We considered five major factors, which was a revision from previously 11 factors used by other scholars such as (Fryrear et al., 1994). Indepth research over the years led to application of 5 major factors as listed below.

Climate Erosivity Factor (CE)

Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC)

Soil Roughness Factor (SR)

Erodible Fraction Factor (EF)

Soil Crust Factor (SC)

Can someone include another modelling factor?

This has to be in line with indepth research, however, we reccomend the usage of the applied factors in LaSWE system.

Do the factors change overtime?

There are static factors which do not change, while other factors are dynamic, meaning they change overtime. The climatic factors and vegetation based factors are mostly annual products.

Why did you use land cover in place of land roughness?

In places where there is lack of roughness data, Land use land cover is reclassified with C factor values, that assigns weights for various land use land cover classes. Land cove classes can be used as a proxy to surface roughness data.