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Impacts of meteorology and vegetation on surface dust concentrations in Middle Eastern countries.

ABSTRACT: Severe dust events have occurred frequently in arid regions, which greatly impacted air quality, climate, and public health. The Middle East is one of the areas in the world impacted by intense dust storms. We investigated the characteristics of airborne dust levels in five Middle Eastern countries (Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria) from 2001 to 2017. Surface level dust concentrations were determined using the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2. Kuwait was selected as an example to assess sources and other factors influencing dust levels in arid regions. We performed backward trajectory analysis to identify the dust transport pathways. We quantitatively assessed the impacts of meteorological parameters along with the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Dust levels in Kuwait were higher than the other four countries, and had a distinct seasonal pattern, with the highest in summer and the lowest in winter. Our results showed that dust levels in Kuwait in January were influenced largely by local emissions, whereas in June they were affected more by emissions attributable to long-distance transport. There were significant positive associations between wind speed in the five countries, particularly Iraq, with dust levels in Kuwait, indicating the impact of nearby desert areas. Significant negative associations were observed between NDVI in Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia with dust levels in Kuwait. Our result highlights that climatic variations and vegetation conditions are associated with changes in dust levels in arid regions.

SUBMITTER: Li J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7085415 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread rapidly worldwide in the first half of 2020. Stringent national lockdown policies imposed by China to prevent the spread of the virus reduced anthropogenic emissions and improved air quality. A weather research and forecasting model coupled with chemistry was applied to evaluate the impact of meteorology and emissions on air quality during the COVID-19 outbreak (from January 23 to February 29, 2020) in mid-eastern China. The results show that air pollution episodes still occurred on polluted days and accounted for 31.6%-60.5% of the total number of outbreak days in mid-eastern China from January 23 to February 29, 2020. However, anthropogenic emissions decreased significantly, indicating that anthropogenic emission reduction cannot completely offset the impact of unfavorable meteorological conditions on air quality. Favorable meteorological conditions in 2019 improved the overall air quality for a COVID-19 outbreak in 2019 instead of 2020. PM2.5 concentrations decreased by 4.2%-29.2% in Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, and Taiyuan, and increased by 6.1%-11.5% in Jinan and Zhengzhou. PM2.5 concentrations increased by 10.9%-20.5% without the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020 in mid-eastern China, and the frequency of polluted days increased by 5.3%-18.4%. Source apportionment of PM2.5 during the COVID-19 outbreak showed that industry and residential emissions were the dominant PM2.5 contributors (32.7%-49.6% and 26.0%-44.5%, respectively) followed by agriculture (18.7%-24.0%), transportation (7.7%-15.5%), and power (4.1%-5.9%). In Beijing, industrial and residential contributions to PM2.5 concentrations were lower (32.7%) and higher (44.5%), respectively, than in other cities (38.7%-49.6% for industry and 26.0%-36.2% for residential). Therefore, enhancing regional cooperation and implementing a united air pollution control are effective emission mitigation measures for future air quality improvement, especially the development of new technologies for industrial and cooking fumes.

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Impacts of meteorology and vegetation on surface dust concentrations in Middle Eastern countries.

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