Sand and dust storms (SDS) are known by many local names: the sirocco, haboob, yellow dust, white storms, or the harmattan.
While sand and dust storms can fertilize both land and marine ecosystems, they also present a range of hazards to human health, livelihoods and the environment.
SDS events typically originate in low-latitude drylands and sub-humid areas where vegetation cover is sparse or absent.
They can also occur in other environments, including agricultural and high-latitude areas in humid regions, when specific wind and atmospheric conditions coincide.
Sand and dust events can have substantial transboundary impacts, over thousands of kilometers.
Unified and coherent global and regional policy responses are needed, especially to address source mitigation, early warning systems, and monitoring.
Sand and dust storms often have significant economic impacts: for example, they cost the oil sector in Kuwait an estimated US$ 190 million annually, while a single SDS event in 2009 resulted in damage estimated at US$ 229 – 243 million in Australia.
The major global sources of mineral dust are in the northern hemisphere across North Africa, the Middle East and East Asia. In the southern hemisphere, Australia, South America and Southern Africa are the main dust sources.
More than 80 per cent of Central Asia is covered by deserts and steppes which, coupled with climate change and lasting droughts, represent a major natural source of sand and dust storms.
The dried-up Aral Sea is a major source of sand and dust storm, emitting more than 100 million tons of dust and poisonous salts every year, impacting the health not just of the people living in the vicinity, but far beyond and generating annual losses of US$ 44 million.
Recognition of sand and dust storms as a disaster risk appears to be high in North-East Asia, parts of West Asia and North America but less prominent elsewhere.
Low recognition of sand and dust as a disaster risk is likely due to the lack (in many cases) of significant immediate direct human fatalities or injuries from individual SDS events, and limited consolidated documentation on their long-term health, economic or other impacts.
Source: UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)
