Due to its serious obstacle and threat to human survival and society sustainable development, desertification has received much attention from the world. The movement of sand and dust particles on the land surface and in the air driven by air flow is the main form of desertification occurrence and development process, it is also one of the core contents of desert science and desertification control engineering. The interaction mechanism among wind,surface and dust particles is the key to analysising of land desertification process or the establishment of disaster prevention project. This paper presents the development course of the physics of wind-blown sand, and an extensive review of the structure of the wind-sand field, physicas of aeolian dust emission, collision mechanism of the sand dust, electrification of wind-blown sand, modelling and experiment of the sand flow, formation and development of sand ripples and dunes, and the application of research work on mechanism of wind-blown sand to the desertification control. At last the direction for future study was put forward.

desertification  /  sand  /  wind velocity  /  engineering of desertification control