Geneva: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned of the increasing damage caused by sand and dust storms to global health and economies, stressing the need to continue improving monitoring, forecasting, and early warning systems.
According to Qatar News Agency, in its Annual Airborne Dust Bulletin, released today, the WMO highlighted the hotspots of sand and dust storms, revealing that approximately 330 million people in more than 150 countries worldwide are affected by them each year. About 2,000 million tons of sand and dust enter the atmosphere, and more than 80 percent of the total global dust originates in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. It can travel hundreds, even thousands, of kilometers across continents and oceans.
Most of this process is natural, but it noted that mismanagement of water and land, drought, and environmental degradation are increasingly responsible. For her part, Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement: “Sand and dust storms are not just about dirty windows and hazy skies. They harm the health and quality of life of millions of people, costing millions of dollars through disruptions to air and land transport, agriculture, and solar energy production.”
The Secretary-General explained that the bulletin shows how the health risks and economic costs of these storms are increasing, “and how investments in early dust warnings, mitigation, and control can yield significant returns. That’s why sand and dust storms are a priority of the Early Warnings for All initiative.” She noted that although the annual global average surface dust concentrations in 2024 were slightly lower than in 2023, there were significant regional variations. In the most affected areas, surface dust concentrations were higher than the long-term average for the period 1981-2010.
According to the bulletin, the regions most vulnerable to long-distance dust transport were the tropical North Atlantic between West Africa and the Caribbean, South America, the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and central-eastern China. A new sand and dust storm index developed by the World Meteorological Organization and the World Health Organization 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.
Exposure varied widely, from just 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 regions. According to a recent study, dust and wind erosion cost the United States alone an estimated $154 billion in 2017-more than four times the 1995 estimate. The World Meteorological Organization stated that the true cost of dust was certainly much higher, as reliable national-level assessments of many of the economic impacts of dust were not available.
The annual Airborne Dust Bulletin was released to coincide with the International Day for Combating Sand and Dust Storms, which falls on Saturday, July 12 of each year, and was designated by the General Assembly, which also declared the period from 2025 to 2034 the Decade for Combating Sand and Dust Storms.