Wind-break \Wind"-break`\, n. A clump of trees
serving for a protection against the force of wind. [Local, U. S.]
[1913 Webster]
Word Net
windbreak n : hedge or fence of trees designed to lessen the force of the wind and reduce erosion [syn: shelterbelt]English
A windbreak or shelterbelt is a plantation usually made up of
one or more rows of trees
or shrubs planted in such
a manner as to provide shelter from the wind and to protect soil from
erosion. They are
commonly planted around the edges of fields on farms. If designed
properly, windbreaks around a home can reduce the cost of heating
and cooling and save energy. Windbreaks are also
planted to help keep snow
from drifting onto roadways and even yards. Other benefits include
providing habitat for wildlife and in some regions the trees are
harvested for wood products.
A further use for a shelterbelt is to screen a
farm from a main road or motorway. This improves the farm landscape
by reducing the visual incursion of the motorway, reducing noise
from the traffic and providing a safe barrier between farm animals
and the road.
Major shelterbelt projects
Afforestation
projects involving large-scale planting of shelterbelts have
been more than once proposed by governments as a way to reduce
soil
erosion and improve microclimate in otherwise
treeless agricultural areas.
- USA: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles.
- USSR: A section of Marshal Stalin's "Great Plan for Transformation of Nature" (October 1948) provided planting of a gigantic network shelterbelts (, lesopolosa, 'forest strip') across the steppes of southern USSR.
- China: The Green Wall of China, a project intended to plant 4,800 km of shelterbelts across Northern China by 2074.
Smaller scale shelterbelt projects have been
proposed and implemented elsewhere, e.g. in India.