Dunes changing their shape: The case of the dunes of the Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra region

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna (1)

1 Polito - Politecnico di Torino = Polytechnic of Turin

Sand can create an endlessly moving collection of dunes, drifted by the prevailing winds. However, it can happen that, changing the winds, also the motion and the shape of the dunes change. Here we show an example in the dunes of the Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra region, in the west of Sahara. We can observe that the barchans assume a deformed shape in the satellite images of 2016, images that we can find in the time series of Google Earth. The origin of this deformation is in the change of the prevailing wind.

Mots clés: Sand dunes; Satellite images; Time series; Google Earth

Domaines: Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]; Milieux et Changements globaux

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna. Dunes changing their shape: The case of the dunes of the Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra region. Philica, 2017, enviro.philica.com, 941. ⟨hal-01448702⟩