Thar Desert in Rajasthan, India, is predominantly made up of sand dunes formed by wind-blown soils. Soil erosion from wind has resulted in significant sand dune migration, negatively impacting soil fertility, infrastructure, and increasing particulate matter. Further, Rajasthan, the largest producer of marble in India, also faces the challenge of disposing marble slurry annually. This study proposes a unique solution by addressing these challenges and utilizing discarded marble slurry as a potential surface treatment to stabilize and mitigate the sand dune migration. Aeolian soil from sand dune and marble slurry from disposal site were collected and analyzed to determine their properties. Four distinct mixtures of marble slurry and sand were formulated and tested as dune stabilizers, leveraging the binding properties of the fine marble slurry particles. To assess the erodibility of the crusted specimens, laboratory experiments were conducted using a wind simulator at wind speeds between 1.2 and 6.5 m/s. The results indicate that the cohesive nature of the slurry facilitated the formation of a durable crust on the dune surface effectively reducing the soil mass loss from 70 to 0.56% at minimal addition of marble slurry mixture. Further increase in marble slurry proportion to 60% effectively reduced the cumulative soil mass loss to almost 0%. The enormous reduction in soil mass loss and no leachability characteristics of the sample highlight the efficiency and applicability. The study also investigates microstructural characteristics to gain insight into the crust formation potential of marble slurry.

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Applicability of Waste Marble Slurry-Desert Sand as a Crust to Mitigate Wind Erosion of Sand Dunes

  • Sumaja Kolli,
  • Ahsan Ul Haq,
  • Pradeep Kumar Dammala,
  • Krishna R. Reddy

摘要

Thar Desert in Rajasthan, India, is predominantly made up of sand dunes formed by wind-blown soils. Soil erosion from wind has resulted in significant sand dune migration, negatively impacting soil fertility, infrastructure, and increasing particulate matter. Further, Rajasthan, the largest producer of marble in India, also faces the challenge of disposing marble slurry annually. This study proposes a unique solution by addressing these challenges and utilizing discarded marble slurry as a potential surface treatment to stabilize and mitigate the sand dune migration. Aeolian soil from sand dune and marble slurry from disposal site were collected and analyzed to determine their properties. Four distinct mixtures of marble slurry and sand were formulated and tested as dune stabilizers, leveraging the binding properties of the fine marble slurry particles. To assess the erodibility of the crusted specimens, laboratory experiments were conducted using a wind simulator at wind speeds between 1.2 and 6.5 m/s. The results indicate that the cohesive nature of the slurry facilitated the formation of a durable crust on the dune surface effectively reducing the soil mass loss from 70 to 0.56% at minimal addition of marble slurry mixture. Further increase in marble slurry proportion to 60% effectively reduced the cumulative soil mass loss to almost 0%. The enormous reduction in soil mass loss and no leachability characteristics of the sample highlight the efficiency and applicability. The study also investigates microstructural characteristics to gain insight into the crust formation potential of marble slurry.