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In many of the Earth's arid and semiarid lands, saline lakes, playas, and similar landforms are disturbed as a result of human activity. Diversion and/or consumptive use of surface or groundwaters has created the effect of a climate change in numerous drainage basins, resulting in the desiccation of lakes and reactivation of eolian processes at many locations. Playas are natural sites for extensive eolian activity because of the deposition of clastic and chemical sediments in basins by surface water (via fluvial transport) and groundwater (via efflorescence). Wind erosion and deposition of playa sediments has had a major role in the development of landforms and sedimentary units in the present (lunette fields worldwide; Simpson Desert, Australia) and geological past, from the Triassic (Mercia Mudstone, England) to the Quaternary (Lahontan Basin and Cima Volcanic Field, USA). Anthropogenic disturbance or …