A cellular automaton model for investigating landscape development in vegetated aeolian environments.

植被在沿海沙丘和半干旱地区等由风沙输送形成的景观中发挥着重要作用。我们很清楚不同类型的沙漠沙丘和沙丘在没有植被的情况下是如何以及为什么形成的，但我们对植被在沿海沙丘、抛物线沙丘、井喷和灌木丘陵形成中的影响的理解仅限于描述性的观察和推理。这对于景观尺度上的植被沙丘领域来说尤其如此，各种植物物种对这种环境的演变和动态的影响没有量化。这项研究项目旨在开发一种计算机模拟模型，该模型基于在网格单元之间移动沙板，该网格代表一个景观表面，每个单元中包括不同数量的植被。这些移动由一套简单的规则控制，这些规则规定了现有表面、每个单元中的植被和沙板的传播之间的相互作用。这使得可以通过自组织进入不同类型的沙丘场来模拟风沙景观的演变，而无需实际模拟复杂的气流动力学和沙子输送模式。模拟将与我们目前对植被风沙景观发展的描述性理解进行比较，以确保模型产生现实的结果。然后，该模型被用来系统地研究各种植物物种和植被模式如何以及为什么影响风沙环境中沙丘发育的动态。

Vegetation plays an important role in landscapes that are shaped by wind-driven (aeolian) sand transport, such as coastal dunes and semi-arid regions. We have a good knowledge of how and why different types of desert dunes and dune fields form without the presence of vegetation, but our understanding of the effects of vegetation in the formation of coastal foredunes, parabolic dunes, blowouts, and nebkha's (shrub hummocks) is limited to descriptive observations and reasoning. This is especially true for vegetated dune fields on a landscape scale, and the effects of various plant species on the evolution and dynamics of such environments are not quantified. This research project aims to develop a computer simulation model based on moving around slabs of sand across a grid of cells that represents a landscape surface including varying amounts of vegetation in each cell. These movements are controlled by a set of simple rules that dictate interactions between the existing surface, the vegetation in each cell, and the propagation of the sand slabs. This allows simulating the evolution of aeolian landscapes through self-organisation into different types of dune fields without actually modelling the complex airflow dynamics and sand transport patterns. Simulations will be compared with our current descriptive understanding of vegetated aeolian landscape development to ensure that the model generates realistic results. The model is then used to systematically investigate exactly how and why various kinds of plant species and vegetation patterns influence the dynamics of dune development in aeolian environments.