Geneva – Saba:
The World Meteorological Organization said on Thursday that sand and dust storms affect 330 million people in 150 countries and are causing increasing damage to health and the economy.
In a report on airborne dust, the organization stated that there is a need to continue improving monitoring, forecasting, and early warning processes.
The report stated that the annual global average surface dust concentrations in 2024 were slightly lower than in 2023, although there were significant regional variations. Surface dust concentrations in 2024 were higher than the long-term average for the period 1981–2010 in the most affected areas.
It pointed out that approximately 2 trillion tons of sand and dust enter the atmosphere each year. More than 80 percent of the global dust originates in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East and can be transported thousands of kilometers across continents and oceans.
The report, issued to mark the International Day for Combating Sand and Dust Storms, which falls on July 12 of each year, explained that much of this process is natural, but that mismanagement of water and land, drought, and environmental degradation are increasingly responsible.
It noted that sand and dust concentrations were below average in many major source regions in 2024 and above average in many dust-borne regions.
The report indicated that the regions most vulnerable to long-range dust transport are the tropical North Atlantic Ocean between West Africa and the Caribbean, South America, the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and central-eastern China.
It stated that African dust transport across the Atlantic Ocean swept across parts of the Caribbean in 2024.
Meanwhile, Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), warned that sand and dust storms harm the health and quality of life of millions of people and cost millions of dollars by disrupting air and land transport, agriculture, and solar energy production.
She emphasized that investments in early warning of dust, mitigation, and control will yield significant returns.
The new WMO/WHO index shows that 3.8 billion people (nearly half of the world's population) were exposed to dust levels exceeding the WHO safety threshold between 2018 and 2022. This represents a 31 percent increase compared to 2.9 billion people (44.5 percent) between 2003 and 2007.
The index indicates that exposure rates varied greatly, from only a few days in relatively unaffected areas to more than 87 percent of days—equivalent to more than 1,600 days over five years—in the most dust-prone areas. The report, based on a US study, stated that the cost of dust and wind erosion in the United States alone was estimated at $154 billion in 2017, a fourfold increase from the 1995 estimate.
The estimates included costs for households, crops, wind and solar energy, mortality rates from fine dust exposure, health costs from Valley Fever, and transportation.
The report stated that the true cost could be much higher due to the lack of reliable national-level assessments of many of the other economic impacts of dust, such as human disease rates, the hydrological cycle, aviation, and pasture farming.
| more of (International) |