Dust in the Wind and Public Health: Example from Mauritania.
2008
Ozer, Pierre
The Sahara largely contributes to the global injection of mineral dust into the northern hemisphere. Since the onset of the drought in the Sahel and the environmental degradation in the arid and semi-arid belts surrounding the Sahara, dust storms frequency and intensity has dramatically increased. It is now irrefutable that air pollution caused by large amounts of respiratory particulates or Particulate Matter less than 10 µm in aerodynamic diameter (PM10) has numerous undesired consequences on human health. Air quality degradation far away from the African continent in the US and in Europe caused by high concentration of African dust is seen as a major health threat although most of these countries are very distant from the Sahara. Surprisingly, no estimates of PM10 levels near the Saharan dust source are available. Based on horizontal visibility observations which are reduced by the presence of dust in the atmosphere, PM10 levels are estimated at the station of Nouakchott, Mauritania by using relations found in the literature. It appears that excessive concentrations of particles are very important both in magnitude and frequency as the 24-hour PM10 thresholds established by the US EPA National Ambient Air Quality Standards and the EU Limits Values for Air Quality were systematically exceeded. The average yearly concentration is far above air quality standards. These very high particulate levels are likely to represent an important public health threat and should be considered as a major environmental risk. We present here a first comparison between monthly respiratory diseases data and PM10 concentrations due to dust storms.
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