Health and Safety Effects of Airborne Soil Dust in the Americas and Beyond

Abstract

Risks associated with dust hazards are often underappreciated, a gap between the knowledge pool and public awareness that can be costly for impacted communities. This study reviews the emission sources and chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of airborne soil particles (dust) and their effects on human and environmental health and safety in the Pan-American region. American dust originates from both local sources (western United States, northern Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina) and long-range transport from Africa and Asia. Dust properties, as well as the trends and interactions with criteria air pollutants, are summarized. Human exposure to dust is associated with adverse health effects, including asthma, allergies, fungal infections, and premature death. In the Americas, a well-documented and striking effect of soil dust is its association with Coccidioidomycosis, commonly known as Valley fever, an infection caused by inhalation of soil-dwelling fungi unique to this region. Besides human health, dust affects environmental health through nutrients that increase phytoplankton biomass, contaminants that diminish water supply and affect food (crops/ fruits/vegetables and ready-to-eat meat), spread crop and marine pathogens, cause Valley fever among domestic and wild animals, transport heavy metals, radionuclides and microplastics, and reduce solar and wind power generation. Dust is also a safety hazard to road transportation and aviation, in the southwestern US where blowing dust is one of the deadliest weather hazards. To mitigate the harmful effects, coordinated regional and international efforts are needed to enhance dust observations and prediction capabilities, soil conservation measures, and Valley fever and other disease surveillance.Plain Language Summary Soil particles suspended in the air, commonly known as dust, impose substantial risks to many sectors of society, including human health, environmental health, transportation safety and the general economy. This work focuses on the dust effects in the Pan-American region, where the knowledge is rather fragmented, but impacts are costly.

Synoptic Analysis and WRF‐Chem Model Simulation of Dust Events in the Southwestern United States

“…In the northern Chihuahuan Desert, our simulated pattern of large dust emission fluxes from unvegetated and poorly vegetated regions including dry playas is also consistent with previous studies (Baddock et al., 2011; Hennen et al., 2022). The large dust emitting regions in the simulations covering the southwestern Colorado Plateau and northern Chihuahuan Desert also correspond to regions of measured large spring season sediment flux (Bergametti & Gillette, 2010), dust emission hotspots that contribute to blowing dust on highways (Tong et al., 2023) and large PM concentration (Hand et al., 2017). In the southwestern Colorado Plateau and northern Chihuahuan Desert, fine dust (PM 2.5 ) concentration peaks (1.7–2.22 μgm −3 ) are observed during the spring season (Hand et al., 2017).…”

“…In spring (March–May), dust events across the Southwestern United States (hereafter Southwest) bring deleterious impacts on human health by degrading air quality (Achakulwisut et al., 2017; Hand et al., 2017, 2019); regional transportation by reducing visibility (Tong et al., 2023); ecosystem services and agricultural production by losing topsoil and associated nutrients and soil carbon (Duniway et al., 2019; Webb et al., 2017); and water resources by impacting dust radiative forcing of snow melt (Rahimi et al., 2020; Skiles & Painter, 2017). Dust transported from regionally active source areas affects mountain snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin (Skiles et al., 2015).…”

The Landscape Data Commons: A system for standardizing, accessing, and applying large environmental datasets for agroecosystem research and management

“…Wind erosion and resultant blowing dust are important threats to ecosystems and human health in the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico (Figure 4). Wind erosion selectively removes fine soil, nutrients, and carbon (Webb et al., 2012), while blowing dust exposure is linked to adverse health effects such as asthma, Valley fever infections, and is a safety hazard to road transportation (Tong et al., 2023). Ecologically, the region is dominated by grasslands and savannas, which have experienced extensive shrub encroachment and loss of perennial grasses that are desirable for livestock production (Bestelmeyer et al., 2018).…”

Dust Under the Radar: Rethinking How to Evaluate the Impacts of Dust Events on Air Quality in the United States

“…These dust events have an important effect on the atmospheric system, influencing radiation (Lau et al., 2020), cloud formation (Chen et al., 2019), and the atmospheric vertical electric field (Ardon‐Dryer, Chmielewski, et al., 2022). Air quality, human well‐being, and human health are also affected, mainly negatively (Ardon‐Dryer & Kelley, 2022; Tong et al., 2023a, 2023b). Dust in North America is estimated to contribute ∼2.5% (0.3–0.9 Tg) of the global dust loading for particles with diameters up to 20 μm (PM 20 ) (Kok et al., 2021), yet some studies estimated much higher concentrations as found by Urban et al.…”