Windbreak

If designed properly, windbreaks around a home can reduce the cost of heating and cooling and save energy.

Windbreaks and intercropping can be combined in a farming practice referred to as alley cropping, or being deployed along riparian buffer stripes.

Alley cropping has been particularly successful in India, Africa, and Brazil, where coffee growers have combined farming and forestry.

[citation needed] Sheltered, windless areas created by windbreaks are called wind shadows.

This results in slower wind speed further downwind, reaching a minimum at a distance of about 3 to 5 times the windbreak's height.