Spatial structuring and size selection as collective behaviours in an agent-based model for barchan fields

In order to test parameters of the peculiar dynamics occurring in barchan fields, and compute statistical analysis over large numbers of dunes, we build and study an agent-based model, which includes the well-known physics of an isolated barchan, and observations of interactions between dunes. We showed in a previous study that such a model, where barchans interact through short-range sand recapture and collisions, reproduces the peculiar behaviours of real fields, namely its spatial structuring along the wind direction, and the size selection by the local density. In this paper we focus on the mechanisms that drives these features. In particular, we show that eolian remote sand transfer between dunes ensures that a dense field structures itself into a very heterogeneous pattern, which alternates dense and diluted stripes in the wind direction. In these very dense clusters of dunes, the accumulation of collisions leads to the local emergence of a new size for the dunes. Copyright EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013