Wind erosion observed in the Kitakami Highlands has been caused by severe weather condition and deforestation. Though strong west wind in winter and solifluction in spring are known as the major physical factors of erosion, it is difficult to evaluate their effects quantitatively. This paper proposes to use a directional openess index and an averaged direct solar irradiation in addition to elevation to explain probabilities of wind erosion occurrence, and demonstrates the dominance of these factors over simple topographical factors such as slope and aspect. Generalized linear models with cross effects were applied to a dataset derived from digital elevation models and vegetation maps. The effect of deforestration on wind erosion was also analysed.
