Windblown sand saltation: A statistical approach to fluid threshold shear velocity

The reliable prediction in probabilistic terms of the consequences of aeolian events related to sand transport phenomena is a key element for human activities in arid regions. Threshold shear velocity generating sand lifting is a key component of such a prediction. It suffers from the effect of uncertainties of different origin, such as those related to the physical phenomena, measurement procedures, and modelling. Semi empirical models are often fitted to a small amount of data, while recent probabilistic models needs the probability distribution of several random variables. Triggered by this motivation, this paper proposes a purely statistical approach to fluid threshold shear velocity for sand saltation, treated as a single comprehensive random variable. A data set is derived from previously published studies. Estimates of conditional probability distributions of threshold shear velocity for given grain diameters are given. The obtained statistical moments are critically compared to some deterministic semi empirical models refitted to the same collected data. The proposed statistical approach allows to obtain high order statistics useful for practical purposes.