Steven L. Namikas University of Southern California The doctoral dissertation research will involve a comprehensive field investigation of the saltation process and its influence on aeolian transport rates. A two phase field project will be undertaken at Pismo Beach State Park, CA to allow data collection under a range of wind conditions. Simultaneous high frequency measurements of all key saltation parameters will be collected. These will be used to investigate the interaction between the sub-processes of saltation and examine their influence on short term variability in aeolian transport. The overall research objective is to incorporate understanding of short term variations in transport gained in this research into existing models of aeolian transport and thereby improve our predictive modeling capabilities and our ability to deal with the environmental and geomorphic consequences of wind blown sand.
