**4. Conclusions**

Over the last 6 decades, portable field wind tunnels have been successfully used on several continents to study the controlling processes of aeolian particle movement, assess the erodi‐ bility of natural surfaces subjected to different disturbances, estimate dust emission rates for natural surfaces, investigate the partitioning of chemical and microbiological components of the soil on entrained sediment, and to estimate the threshold wind velocity necessary to ini‐ tiate aeolian particle movement. Although not a perfect replacement for wind in the natural environment due to the absence of turbulent gusts, the forces created by the wind are re‐ peatable and the accuracy of the tunnel is solely dependent on the accuracy of the devices measuring critical operating parameters such as wind velocity and sediment loading. When properly designed, calibrated, constructed, and operated, very useful information can be ob‐ tained in a relatively short period of time with these tools.
