Wind Erosion

Brazil isn't windswept the way the Sahel or the U.S. Dust Bowl were, but two very different wind-erosion regimes still shape its landscape: constant onshore trade winds building spectacular coastal dune fields, and drier interior winds stripping exposed topsoil wherever vegetation has been cleared.

Coastal Dune Fields

Onshore trade winds gusting up to 70 km/h sweep quartz sand off the beach at Lençóis Maranhenses (Maranhão) and pile it inland into a roughly 1,000 km² field of migrating white crescent dunes, pocketed with seasonal rainwater lagoons. Similar wind-built dune systems line the coast of Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará (e.g. Genipabu), where active dunes are known to creep over roads and vegetation.

Interior Wind Erosion

In the semi-arid Sertão, once Caatinga scrub is cleared for grazing or firewood, the region's strong dry-season winds pick up the exposed sandy-loam topsoil left behind — accelerating the very degradation that produces the desertification nuclei described in the deserts section.

Since 1981, Lençóis Maranhenses has been protected as a national park administered by ICMBio, which restricts permanent construction on the active dune field and has pushed back on unplanned wind-farm siting nearby, since turbines and access roads can alter the very wind patterns that keep the dunes migrating naturally. In the interior, the government leans on revegetation rather than engineering: the national desertification and drought action plan (PAB-Brasil, detailed in the deserts section) funds agroforestry and native Caatinga restoration precisely because a restored plant canopy anchors soil against wind far more cheaply than physical windbreaks ever could.