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Monitoring and Modeling of Dust Emission

Present-day dust emissions in southwestern North America have important regional effects on human health and air quality, and serve as an indicator of land-surface degradation through wind erosion. Known dust sources in the SW USA include dry lake (playa) surfaces and their margins, ephemeral drainage areas, poorly vegetated alluvial fans, agricultural fields, military bases, and growing urban and rural areas. Less is known about antecedent conditions for dust emission, production and availability of fine-grained sediment, dust compositions and pathogen contents, absolute and relative contributions to dust flux, and transport paths from different sources.

New remote sensing methods (employing observations and images from satellite, ground, and airborne platforms) have been developed to monitor dust storms in the Mojave Desert and to track dust plumes. These studies are complemented by new methods to analyze images from satellite and NASA aircraft that characterize desert landscapes and detect changes in vegetation and land surfaces (on the Colorado Plateau and the Mojave Desert that promote or suppress dust generation. USGS scientists and university collaborators integrate these new methods with study of desert surfaces and their fine-grained sediments, soil conditions, wind erosion, plant distribution, and meteorology to develop models for understanding and predicting locations and amounts of dust emission.

Study of the compositions of past and modern dusts across the Colorado Plateau and other Southwest transects is leading to better understanding of dust sources and shifts in these sources related to changing natural conditions and human activities.

For additional information, please visit:

• Playas and Groundwater Interaction - Potential for Dust Sources
• Dust storms in the Mojave Desert, April 15, 2002
• Relation of dust emission to ENSO in the Mojave Desert