Desertification is transforming once-productive land into dry, degraded terrain at an accelerating rate. The process is increasing globally due to climate change and rising temperatures.
Transforming soil to desert creates sand and dust which can then be carried over borders, continents, and oceans to impact ecosystems and affect human health far from its source. Dust lifted from one region can ultimately affect the air quality, ecosystems, and public health of another.
The science and health impacts of dust
Desertification is accelerating through climate change, over-farming, and water depletion. With these changes comes an increased risk to human health, economic upset, greater social injustice, and disrupted ecosystems.
How climate change intensifies dust
With increased global temperatures associated with human-caused climate change, longer lasting and more intense droughts are an increasing reality. When drought parches the soil, winds sweep up particulate matter, creating dust storms that can traverse continents, blanketing cities and countries, and reddening skies.
Large dust plumes can also affect the climate in unexpected ways. Plumes can reflect sunlight back into space, temporarily cooling the atmosphere; they also absorb heat, altering temperature and precipitation patterns (1). Meanwhile, dust deposited on snow and ice darkens their surfaces, accelerating melt rates and contributing to rising sea levels (2).
Beyond affecting air quality and visibility, dust can also reshape the environments where it settles.
Dust’s impact on ecosystems
Dust plays a paradoxical role in ecosystems. While it fertilizes rainforests and oceans with nutrients like phosphorus, it can also smother coral reefs, alter soil composition, and change rainfall distribution (3)(4). In this way, dust can act as both a nutrient source and a pollutant, depending on where it travels and where it settles.
In the Amazon, dust from the Sahara Desert helps sustain biodiversity, but in marine environments, it can fuel harmful algal blooms that devastate aquatic life (5)(6). On land, dust deposition can change soil chemistry, favoring some plant species over others and reshaping entire landscapes (7). It can also affect photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, and even injure plants or make them more vulnerable to other pollutants.
Dust and air quality
Dust can affect air quality both locally and thousands of miles from its origin. The way it behaves depends partly on how it is generated, but also on atmospheric conditions and the winds that carry it.
Dust can come from multiple local, human-caused sources, including construction, demolition, agricultural practices, industrial processes, landscaping, vehicle traffic from road surfaces, and even walking on unpaved paths (8).
Some short, intense dust storms like haboobs may remain a localized anomaly appearing as a wall of dust engulfing cities. However, unlike larger plumes which may travel great distances, haboobs tend to last only about 10 to 30 minutes (9). Air quality measurements of airborne pollutants, especially PM2.5 and PM10, can sharply rise during a haboob.
In very large, naturally occurring dust plumes, dust is lifted and carried high into the atmosphere by strong winds. Such plumes may gradually disperse and deposit dust, coating surfaces like homes, cars, fields, and vegetation.
Arid and desert regions can generate some of the most significant dust plumes, and geographic features can work to magnify its impact. For example, the Bodélé Depression in the Sahara Desert is considered the most intense source of airborne dust on the planet. This is because strong winds blow dust through the basin and into what is effectively a wind tunnel formed by mountains and sand dunes. That dust can then cross North Africa and impact the air quality of millions of people living in West Africa or deep into Northern Europe (10).
Dust and human health
Dust storms can carry more than soil particles alone. Airborne dust may also contain biomaterials, heavy metals, and microplastics, all of which can affect human health in different ways (11)(12)(13).
Fine particulate matter found in dust, PM2.5, poses the greatest concern for human health. PM2.5, or particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or less, can be inhaled deeply into the lungs. From there, PM2.5 can trigger asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and lung infections like Valley Fever, caused by Coccidioides spores in U.S. Southwest dust (14). These fine particles can enter the bloodstream, increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes (15).
Dust storms also often correlate with spikes in hospital visits for respiratory distress (16).
Atmospheric scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center estimated that 22% of premature deaths connected to PM2.5 in 2019 could be directly linked to dust (17). These impacts are often felt most strongly in regions already facing limited healthcare access and environmental stress. Many of those deaths occurred in regions impacted by deserts and dust spanning from West Africa to East Asia.
Economic and social impacts of dust
Desertification and dust’s long reach can strain economies and societies. Dust storms ground flights, reduce solar energy output, and damage crops. Estimated annual crop losses from dust can range in the millions for Mongolia or as high as $154 billion for the United States (18)(19).
Healthcare systems face increased costs from treating dust-related illnesses. Communities may grapple with displaced livelihoods as farmland soil degrades and turns to desert. This desertification can also harm pastoral communities, as livestock are unable to graze or drink.
Where desertification is accelerating
Desertification is a global issue.
For instance, thirteen European Union Member States have reported that parts of their nations were being affected by desertification (20). Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain, and Italy are among the countries most impacted.
Desertification in the U.S. Southwest
In the arid landscapes of Arizona, Southern California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, dust storms and haboobs are a growing air quality concern. The combination of prolonged drought, overgrazing, and urban expansion has left the soil vulnerable to wind erosion (21).
During dust events, hospitals in these states report increased admissions for asthma attacks, pneumonia, and motor vehicle accidents caused by reduced visibility (22). The situation is compounded by the presence of Coccidioides spores in the soil, which become airborne during storms and infect those who inhale them (23). The spores can lead to Valley fever, a fungal infection that can lead to cough, fever, exhaustion, and chest pain.
Saharan dust plumes
Every year, massive plumes of dust from the El Djouf region of the western Sahara Desert travel over 5,000 miles across the Atlantic, reaching the Caribbean, the southeastern United States, and the Amazon rainforest (24).
These plumes, often visible from space, carry millions of tons of fine particles. In affected areas, Saharan dust events lead to hazardous air quality, triggering asthma attacks and other respiratory issues.
The Great Green Wall was launched in 2007 in response to North Africa’s increasing desertification (25). In the Sahel region bordering the Sahara Desert – a semi-arid, savannah region that transitions between desert and greener farmland and forested lands – drought and intense heat have disrupted food production and fueled conflict. The Great Green Wall project involves planting native, ecologically appropriate trees and plants. It’s also renewing degraded lands, creating new agricultural opportunities, and bringing life back to communities living on the periphery of food security.
Arabian Peninsula storms
The Arabian Desert, along with arid regions in Iraq and Syria, is a major source of naturally occurring dust storms in the Arabian Peninsula, especially in the summer months. But dust events can take place any time of year, even in winter.
There are two main sources of dust in the region, including the Mesopotamian flood plain in southern Iraq and the “Rub al-Khali” (or Empty Quarter) in Saudi Arabia (26). Dust can also enter the region from neighboring deserts, like the Sahara. In the region, chronic exposure to dust is linked to higher rates of respiratory diseases and cardiovascular problems than most other regions of the world, with the exception of North Africa (27). Regional dust storms also reduce visibility, causing traffic accidents and grounding flights.
Dust from this region often travels beyond national borders, affecting air quality in Western Asia and even parts of South Asia, creating a shared challenge for the entire region.
Some countries are now investing heavily in long-term containment and restoration efforts.
China's containment plan
Desertification impacts the dry North China Plain. 24.7% of China’s lands have transformed through desertification, affecting 400 million people (28).
In response, China has implemented one of the world’s most ambitious desertification containment programs, combining large-scale afforestation, strict land-use policies, and technological innovation. Through initiatives like the Three-North Shelter Forest Program—often called the "Great Green Wall of China"—the government has planted billions of trees and shrubs to stabilize soil, reduce dust storms, and restore degraded land.
China’s efforts to green the edges of the Taklamakan Desert in the country’s west has created a carbon sink, which is both reducing desertification’s spread and helping to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (29).
China’s government has also worked to reduce desertification in the north through policies countering overcultivation and overgrazing, while turning to supportive technological innovations, like expanding solar panel coverage. Beyond generating clean energy, solar panels can provide shade for desert-adapted plants and shrubs that help stabilize the soil and slow desert expansion (30).
The takeaway
Reducing the impact of desertification and airborne dust requires coordinated action across land management, public health, and environmental policy.
Dust knows no borders. Particles lifted by desertification and drought in one region can travel thousands of miles, affecting health, economies, and ecosystems far away.
Because dust travels across borders and continents, reducing its impacts requires coordinated action that extends beyond any one region.
Restoring degraded lands, investing in public health infrastructure, and early warning systems can all serve to mitigate the worst harm caused by desertification. As desertification expands, understanding how dust moves—and how it affects health, ecosystems, and infrastructure—is becoming an increasingly important part of adapting to a changing climate.
