Aeolian dust as a transport hazard

Abstract

The effects of blowing dust on transport operations are often mentioned as one of the significant impacts of aeolian processes on human welfare. However, few studies have been presented to demonstrate this impact. This research examined official air traffic incident reports in Australia for inclusively 1969-2010 to characterize the hazard of blowing dust to aviation in the country, the first such study of its kind. For the 42 year record, 61 incidents were identified (mean 1.4 per annum), with the large majority occurring in the first half of the 1970s. Only 20% of incidents occurred from 1984 onwards. Australian dust activity has not decreased over time, and the reduction in incidents is partly explained by improvements in aviation technology. The centralisation of Air Traffic Control operations to major coastal cities may however have reduced pilot reporting of dust-induced aviation incidents. By type of dust activity, dust storms were associated with nearly half of the reported incidents and dust hazes produced around a quarter. Only 5% of incidents resulted in any physical damage to aircraft and only one case involving personal injury was reported. The majority of the adverse effects on aviation due to dust (nearly 60% of reported incidents) were related to difficulties for navigation and completion of scheduled journey. Since aircraft damage and bodily harm were rare, the impact of dust in Australia is mostly that of inconvenience and associated raised economic costs. From 1990, the temporal pattern of incidents does not show any significant increase despite several intensely dusty years associated with recent droughts. This suggests that Australian aviation safety may be relatively resistant to the adverse effects of atmospheric dust as a hazard.

Sand and dust storms: underrated natural hazards

“…In a national study using reports of air traffic incidents in Australia, Baddock et al () concluded that atmospheric dust in the country represents at worst an inconvenience and an economic cost; nearly two thirds of the dust‐caused air safety issues identified related to navigational problems. There were no reported deaths during the 42‐year period studied (1969–2010) and these authors pointed out that improvements in aviation technology were at least partly responsible for a reduction in incidents in more recent decades.…”

“…These happenings represent a significant hazard not only to the inhabitants of dryland regions (Middleton and Sternberg, 2013), but also to the many people who live outside of them because desert dust haze frequently is transported great distances (Kellogg and Griffin, 2006). The consequences for human society are varied and wide-ranging, including threats to health (Zhang et al, 2016), agriculture (Phillips, 1999), electricity generation (Mani and Pillai, 2010), and the transport industry (Baddock et al, 2013). To provide a perspective on the impacts of SDS on society and as a natural hazard, research on hospitals in Iran ranked the importance of 10 hazards and their effects: earthquake (71 per cent); extreme temperature (64 per cent); dust storm (59 per cent); hospital overload (48 per cent); power outage (48 per cent); water cut (shortage) (46 per cent); fire (45 per cent); torrential rain (45 per cent); storm (43 per cent); and landslide (39 per cent) (Ardalan et al, 2016).…”

Scaling properties of rainfall and desert dust in the Canary Islands

“…Others interesting aspects are that mineral aerosols exert an important influence over the distribution of soil nutrients (Mahowald et al, 2005;Yoon et al, 2007), induce changes in soil characteristics (McTainsh and Strong, 2007) and cause adverse effects on human health (Boreson et al, 2004;Fisher et al, 2000;Goudie, 2009;De Longueville et al, 2010. Additionally, large concentrations of aeolian emissions could lead to problems in transport operations (Baddock et al, 2013). Mineral dust deposition on the ocean surface represents an input of micronutrients and, as a consequence, partially controls the productivity of marine ecosystems (Shi et al, 2011).…”

Characterizing the Role of Wind and Dust in Traffic Accidents in California

“…Windblown dust can impair visibility for drivers, which can then lead to increased accident risks (Ashley et al, 2015;Goudie, 2014;Okin et al, 2011). While studies of the large-scale effects of dust in the Western United States often focus on wind erosion of surface soil and long-range transport of dust and its effects on Earth processes (e.g., Neff et al, 2008;Painter et al, 2010), there are few studies that focus on dust emitted from local dust sources that could create hazardous travel conditions (e.g., Baddock et al, 2013;Li et al, 2017). Dust-caused traffic accidents can be large and deadly.…”