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UNCCD
PRESS RELEASE
Spanish | French I Russian
Media
contacts:
Xenya Scanlon, +49
152 5454 0492, xsca...@unccd.int
Terry
Collins, +1-416-878-8712 (m), terryc...@gmail.com
Background
reference document: Compendium on
Sand and Dust Storms: https://bit.ly/3slJ6mE
UNCCD
experts are available for interviews by phone or
email.
For additional information,
including accreditation to the closing news
conference 17 Nov.: https://www.unccd.int/cric21
Photos:
https://bit.ly/3snqYJh
Sand
and Dust Storm Frequency Increasing in Many
World Regions, UN
Warns
Wreaks
havoc from Northern and Central Asia to
sub-Saharan
Africa;
UNCCD
experts attribute over 25% of the problem to human
activities enter
the atmosphere every
year;
Two
billion tons of sand and dust, equal in weight to
350 Great Pyramids of Giza,
Health impacts
poorly understood
Sand
and dust storms are an underappreciated problem
now “dramatically” more frequent in some places
worldwide, with at least 25% of the phenomenon
attributed to human activities, according to the
UN Convention to Combat Desertification
(UNCCD).
Accompanied by policy
recommendations, the warning comes as a five-day
meeting takes place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan to
take stock of global progress in the Convention’s
implementation. The UNCCD is one of three
Conventions originated at the 1992 Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro. The other two address climate
change (UNFCCC) and biodiversity (UN
CBD).
The meeting, 13-17 November (https://www.unccd.int/cric21),
includes a high-level session on 15 November
hosted by the Government of Uzbekistan on ways to
address the impacts of sand and dust storms on
global agriculture, industry, transportation,
water and air quality, and human
health.
Says Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD’s
Executive Secretary: “The sight of rolling dark
clouds of sand and dust engulfing everything in
their path and turning day into night is one of
nature’s most intimidating spectacles. It is
a costly phenomenon that wreaks havoc everywhere
from Northern and Central Asia to sub-Saharan
Africa.”
“Sand and dust storms
present a formidable challenge to achieving
sustainable development. However, just as sand and
dust storms are exacerbated by human activities,
they can also be reduced through human actions,”
adds Thiaw.
While sand and dust
storms (SDS) are a regionally common and seasonal
natural phenomenon, the problem is exacerbated by
poor land and water management, droughts, and
climate change, according to UNCCD
experts.
And fluctuations in their
intensity, magnitude, or duration “can make SDS
unpredictable and dangerous.”
With
impacts far beyond the source regions, an
estimated 2 billion tons of sand and dust now
enters the atmosphere every year, an amount equal
in weight to 350 Great Pyramids of
Giza.
In some areas, desert
dust doubled in the last century.
“Sand and
dust storms (SDS) have become increasingly
frequent and severe having substantial
transboundary impacts, affecting various aspects
of the environment, climate, health, agriculture,
livelihoods and the socioeconomic well-being of
individuals. The accumulation of impacts
from sand and dust storms can be significant,”
says Feras Ziadat, Technical Officer at the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO),
Chair of the UN Coalition on Combating Sand and
Dust Storms.
“In source areas, they damage
crops, affect livestock, and strip topsoil. In
depositional areas atmospheric dust, especially in
combination with local industrial pollution, can
cause or worsen human health problems such as
respiratory diseases. Communications, power
generation, transport, and supply chains can also
be disrupted by low visibility and dust-induced
mechanical failures. The United Nations Coalition
on Combating Sand and Dust Storms, currently
chaired by FAO, was created in 2019 to lead global
efforts to tackle SDS.”
In their Sand and
Dust Storms Compendium and accompanying
SDS Toolbox (https://www.unccd.int/land-and-life/sand-and-dust-storms/toolbox),
UNCCD, FAO and partners offer guidance on
approaches and methodologies for collecting and
assessing SDS data, monitoring and early warning,
impact mitigation and preparedness, and source
mapping and anthropogenic source mitigation at
sub-national, national, regional and global
levels.
The SDS discussion forms part
of the agenda of this year’s meeting in Uzbekistan
of the UNCCD’s Committee for the Review of the
Implementation of the Convention (CRIC 21) and
global progress in delivering the Convention’s
strategic objectives. It marks the first time
since its establishment that UNCCD has convened
one of its most significant meetings in Central
Asia.
The meeting comes at a critical
juncture, as recent statistics published via
UNCCD’s new data dashboard (https://data.unccd.int/)
shows the world now losing nearly 1 million square
kilometers of healthy and productive land every
year – some 4.2 million square kilometers between
2015-2019, or roughly the combined area of five
Central Asian nations: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan.
During the meeting (at 18:00
local time / 13:00 GMT, Tuesday 14 November) UNCCD
and FAO experts will launch three
reports:
Other
items on the CRIC 21 agenda include promoting
sustainable land management, ensuring fair land
rights for women, and tackling droughts and
wildfires exacerbated by climate change and
environmental degradation.
* * * *
*
Background: Sand and dust
storms
Sand and dust storms
(SDS) are known by many local names: the sirocco,
haboob, yellow dust, white storms, or the
harmattan.
While SDS can fertilize
both land and marine ecosystems, they also present
a range of hazards to human health, livelihoods
and the environment.
SDS events
typically originate in low-latitude drylands and
sub-humid areas where vegetation cover is sparse
or absent.
They can also occur in
other environments, including agricultural and
high-latitude areas in humid regions, when
specific wind and atmospheric conditions coincide.
SDS events can have substantial transboundary
impacts, over thousands of kilometers. Unified and
coherent global and regional policy responses are
needed, especially to address source mitigation,
early warning systems, and
monitoring.
SDS often have
significant economic impacts: for example, they
cost the oil sector in Kuwait an estimated US$ 190
million annually, while a single SDS event in 2009
resulted in damage estimated at US$ 229 - 243
million in Australia.
The major
global sources of mineral dust are in the northern
hemisphere across North Africa, the Middle East
and East Asia. In the southern hemisphere,
Australia, South America and Southern Africa are
the main dust sources.
More than 80%
of Central Asia is covered by deserts and steppes
which, coupled with climate change and lasting
droughts, represent a major natural source of sand
and dust storms.
The dried-up Aral
Sea is a major source of SDS, emitting more than
100 million tons of dust and poisonous salts every
year, impacting the health not just of the people
living in the vicinity, but far beyond and
generating annual losses of US$ 44
million.
Recognition of SDS as a
disaster risk appears to be high in North-East
Asia, parts of West Asia and North America but
less prominent elsewhere.
Low
recognition of SDS as a disaster risk is likely
due to the lack (in many cases) of significant
immediate direct human fatalities or injuries from
individual SDS events, and limited consolidated
documentation on their long-term health, economic
or other impacts.
SDS and
health
SDS can be
life-threatening for individuals with adverse
health conditions.
Fine dust
particles are carried to high tropospheric levels
(up to a few kilometres high) where winds can
transport them over long
distances.
The health implications of
SDS have been under increased investigation for
decades, with most studies conducted in East Asia,
Europe and the Middle East. There has been a lack
of studies in West Africa.
A
particular focus of this research has been SDS
modification of air pollution.
The
cause-and-effect between sand and dust in the
atmosphere and health outcomes remains unclear and
requires more extensive study. What can be
said is that at-risk members of a population,
especially those with pre-existing cardiopulmonary
issues, including childhood asthma, may have a
higher mortality or morbidity rate during a dust
storm.
SDS can also impose major
costs on the agricultural sector through crop
destruction or reduced yield, animal death or
lower yields of milk or meat, and damage to
infrastructure.
For annual crops,
losses are due to burial of seedlings or crops
under sand deposits, loss of plant tissue and
reduced photosynthetic activity as a result of
sandblasting. This can lead to complete crop loss
in a region or reduced yield.
There
may also be a longer-term effect on some perennial
crops due to tree or crop damage (such as
lucerne/alfalfa crowns being
damaged).
On a positive note, SDS
dust can contain soil nutrients such as nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium, as well as organic
carbon. Some places benefit from this nutrient
deposition on land, and mineral and nutrient
deposition on water, particularly ocean bodies.
When deposited, these can provide nutrients to
downwind crop or pasture areas. These
limited benefits, however, are far outweighed by
the harms done.
Globally, the main
large dust sources are dried lakes; local sources
include glacial outwash plains, volcanic ash zones
and recently plowed fields.
The
multi-faceted, cross-sectoral and transnational
impacts of SDS directly affect 11 of the 17
Sustainable Development Goals yet global
recognition of SDS as a hazard is generally low
due in part to the complexity and seasonally
cumulative impact of SDS, coupled with limited
data.
Insufficient information and
impact assessments hinder effective
decision-making and planning to effectively
address SDS sources and
impacts.
UNCCD helps governments
create policies to promote the scaling-up of
sustainable land management practices and to find
and use the latest science to develop and
implement effective mitigation
policies.
Working with The
Regional Environmental Centre for Central
Asia, UNCCD assists countries vulnerable to
drought and sand and dust storms in Central Asia
to develop and implement risk reduction strategies
at national and regional level. UNCCD encourages
countries to adopt a comprehensive risk reduction
strategy with monitoring and early warning systems
to improve preparedness and resilience to these
environmental disasters.
Among the
measures most needed
are:
- A
multi-sectoral approach bolstered by
information-sharing, short- and long-term
interventions, engaging multiple stakeholders,
and raising awareness of SDS.
- Land
restoration, using soil and water
management practices to protect soils and
increase vegetative cover, which have been shown
to significantly reduce the extent and
vulnerability of source areas, and reduce the
intensity of typical SDS events.
- Early
warning and monitoring, building on
up-to-date risk knowledge, and forecasting, with
all stakeholders (including at-risk populations)
participating to ensure that warnings are
provided in a timely and targeted
manner.
- Impact
mitigation, through preparedness to
reduce vulnerability, increase resilience, and
enables a timely, effective response to SDS
event.
*
* * * *
About
The
United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification (UNCCD) is an international
agreement on good land stewardship. It helps
people, communities and countries create wealth,
grow economies and secure enough food, clean water
and energy by ensuring land users an enabling
environment for sustainable land management.
Through partnerships, the Convention’s 197 parties
set up robust systems to manage drought promptly
and effectively. Good land stewardship based on
sound policy and science helps integrate and
accelerate achievement of the Sustainable
Development Goals, builds resilience to climate
change and prevents biodiversity
loss.
The UNCCD Secretariat led the
creation of the SDS Compendium document in
collaboration with the UNCCD Science-Policy
Interface (SPI), the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO), the World Health Organization
(WHO), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN
Women, the Food and Agriculture Organization of
the UN (FAO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP),
the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR),
and external experts and
partners.
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Copyright ©
2023* United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification*, All rights
reserved.
For preview
interviews and media related inquires
please contact:
UNCCD Press Office: pr...@unccd.int
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Sent: Wednesday, November 15,
2023 11:24 AM
Subject: UNCCD PRESS RELEASE:
Sand and Dust Storm Frequency Increasing in Many
World Regions, UN Warns
UNCCD PRESS RELEASE: Sand and
Dust Storm Frequency Increasing in Many World
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