Associate Professor George Mason University, United States
In the western United States, extreme weather events, such as dust storms and wildfires, are rising in response to climate change. The frequency of dust storms has increased significantly in the past decades and is projected to rise further under climate change. Dust storms impose substantial risks to many sectors of USA society, including human health, environmental health, transportation safety and the general economy. Despite the high stakes, risks associated with dust hazards remain largely understudied and knowledge is rather fragmented. Gaps between knowledge and public awareness are costly for affected communities. This work presents recent advances in linking climate change to dust storm trends and societal effects in the US. Beyond well-documented respiratory and cardiovascular health effects, dust is associated with Valley fever (Coccidioidomycosis), an infectious disease caused by inhaling soil-dwelling fungi, which increased by 700% from 1998 -2021 in the same regions frequently impacted by dust events. Also unknown is the number of people killed by dust-associated traffic crashes. We developed a new dust fatality dataset merging NOAA’s Storm Events Database and DOT’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and calculated 232 dust-related deaths from 2007 - 2017. This number is significantly higher than that reported by the NOAA Natural Hazard Statistics, which assigns 45% of fatalities in dust events to high winds and thunderstorms and does not include many events included in FARS. There exist two dust fatality “hotspots”: the “Deadliest 10 Miles” between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, and Lordsburg Playa, New Mexico. In most years, dust events caused comparable life losses to those from other weather hazards such as hurricanes, thunderstorms, lightning, and wildfires. Based on these analyses and literature review, we have compiled a map of various dust vulnerabilities and assessed the economic costs of dust damages in the United States.
