Significance Understanding fine-particle flows relies on van der Waals cohesion modeling, requiring a method to consider measured surface roughness. A robust scheme to extract roughness parameters from AFM surface maps, achieving accurate predictions of microscale measured cohesion is proposed. Macroscale quantitative agreement is demonstrated by comparing defluidization predictions to measurements, which are sensitive to cohesion and system-size independent. Agreement in both microscale and macroscale comparisons highlights the role of individual particle properties on bulk granular systems. (C) 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 3529-3537, 2016