Plays. The lead dust storms are scourge of modern life in much of the world in order to produce a dull story you need to win and we need soil particles tom murray in this film we look at malta dust storm moves the storm is actually when the visibility is less than a kilometer. And how human activity is making them was plain we focus on the middle east such a being called one of the walls was to his aries plate during the dust storm season and patients get severe attacks of us and thats required hospital admission and intensive care. Well see how nasa satellites can track dust storms as they sweep across the globe the dust to lift it up to three or four miles in altitude before its. Really kind of scary the way by the dozens. Every year the current estimate is anywhere from two to five billion metric tons of news around some just as a nurse atmosphere every year so thats quite a bit of dust. Just isnt always passed scientists are researching the impact of dust crossing the ocean from africa to florida i think the fact that we can see these and pipes are far away is really exciting. So in the rainforest we need the plants to ride their nutrients in a fertilized for dust in kuwait theyre pioneering new ways of tackling the problem of dust storms this babson come to the north that nigga did it. While Technology Brings the prospect of daily dust storms full cost. So he says this time the storm Warning System will not be real hero as the worlds climate becomes more extreme scientists up urging action. It is the number one killer the number one Communicable Disease that we are trying to attack today. Is coming your way its a case of are you going to be suffocating. Or. Dust storms a frightening and dangerous they can occur without warning bringing transport to a standstill and disrupting dating life. About to be called dust can make people sick and it can kill. Sand and dust generated in dry regions across the wild but the greatest source is the so hard as it. Probably produces write about a false something about the order of the earths dust and the reason its there is because theres a no go like that was the wind conditions we went to thats dried up. And its the material from the floor about old like silk and little silica organisms called diatoms the get blown away high up into the air and can troubleshoot distances. Theres a range of countries primarily neighboring the sahara because this is the major source of sand and dust storms both to the north and south but equally to the east where we are talking of iraq iran syria kuwait the emirates the gulf states saudi arabia but increasingly moving to the east we run into the stands as we call them afghanistan took many stars and here the difficulty is that theyre affected in both directions sand and dust being driven to the south from the gobi desert from the Tibetan Plateau and all through asia so theres a whole range of countries with a long plume starting from the western edge of the sahara all the way through and up to china. Just just been blowing around the world for millennia dust storms are a natural phenomenon but the world is getting hotter and in many places dryer. Scientists see clear evidence that human activity is making dust storms while the Science Behind the storms is fascinating we think that twenty to twenty five percent could be attributed to human activity so something called the dust bowl syndrome which is a society was poor Land Management where the topsoil becomes aerosolize like tiny tiny little aerosols which means that the slightest amount of energy or wind can lift up the soil and effectively take those tops of those many thousands of kilometers. Roaming fees a bank are bad characters and corrupt that. We had a big phenomena or tragedy called the dust bowl of the United States in the nine hundred thirty s. The american dustbowl is famous as a human induced environmental disaster. In the one nine hundred twenty s. And thirtys crops were planted on newly created farms on form across lands but drought and for farming on poor soils meant the crops failed year after year. With no vegetation thousands of tons of soil blew away creating choking storms of dust for days on end. How did it happen some unusually what people here made people think that water is available and you can plough anywhere you like and water would follow and this was the dominant thinking. The dust bowl primarily was due to a drop in rainfall in the area at the same time he meant population was migrating in use in that area for agricultural purposes. And they were doing strip farming of the top souls and in leaving im exposed. Farms were abandoned and people were forced to leave their homes for good. And the dust storms got so bad because of there it drove legislation in one nine hundred thirty five to pass a small Conservation Act Congress passed and that for him did that type of farming. The big driver of why its a very. The dust storms dropped over time was because it started raining in. The americans instituted various things like shelter belts and windbreaks which really dampen down in the dust storm activity in the one nine hundred forty s. And on with us and that does show that we can do something about it if we wish in the right circumstances. Today the middle east is one of the areas worst affected by dust storms its in the path of sand and dust blowing from the sun harra but the region itself is increasingly becoming a source of dust decreasing rainfall combined with the over use of water for agriculture making the soil dangerously dry. Why dont we get dust storms any time we have wind because we have higher soil moisture. The soil moisture acts like a glue it keeps the soil particles. Connected to each other so the wind cannot lift and as soon as you lose the weight sure you disconnect these particles and these particles. Are blown away easily whenever you have a way so when you have a drought when you have stronger winds and when you lose your soil moisture you have a dust storm. Theres now a thirty year record of precipitation and soil moisture measurements. The maps on the left show drought as measured by rainfall across the middle east the maps on the right sure soil moisture blue is wetter than average brown drier than average the annual precipitation and overall soil moisture has decreased meanwhile dust storms have increased. Yeah labor. Got pretty good im not going to do it. And i have a right we have seen in middle east and north africa more and more frequent dust storms and one of the reasons is that Water Resources in the region have become more scarce. Nations that wont ever see the control of malta as key to growth and prosperity middle Eastern Countries have ambitious programs to build dams and water pipelines for Drinking Water crop irrigation and hydroelectric power to run alone has built over five hundred dollars for some period after the brava lucian of nine hundred seventy nine was one of the biggest dam builders and the war first this was advertised as a symbol of power as a symbol of independence as a symbol of Development Everyone is proud about doing things like this but in a short period after this move for building dams we see a country into a serious water crisis and a lot of issues coming up. Turkey has had a massive long term project to harness the tigris and euphrates rivers which staunton turkey and flow through neighboring syria and iran. The us to talk competed in nine hundred ninety two and a source of Huge National pride is one of the largest in the. One third of the euphrates form a flow is now diverted for irrigation. Turkeys latest project is the on the river tigris. When completed. It was something much the ancient city of hasnt. Whose history goes back Twelve Thousand years. Once people traveled on the tigris from head to nineveh mosul and babylon. Theyre all International Agreements promising syria and iraq a minimum amount of water. But inevitably the volume of water flowing downstream will be decreased. Most of this water goes into agriculture so we want to irrigate and produce food and in a dry area so the amount of water we have in the buildings is enough for for satisfying our drinking and sanitation needs its not enough to produce food with it or make the region selfsufficient in food for the auction but this is something that the region has not understood well. Now if you draw your soil if you use a lot of water and waste a lot of water then you should expect a punishment which is called a dust store and thats something we have been punished for in the middle east because of not using water properly because a losing soil moisture. Diluted a little bit for the hook one example of the consequences of poor Water Management as neko tuna in around. The lake the largest in the middle east one supported wildlife and a tourist industry. With no outflow its water became many times saltier than the oceans since the completion of dams restricting the inflow of water lake oh now has shrunk dramatically the. Lady who is a good example of the modern environment all tragedy that was created by humans we had a salt lake which was one of the largest in the in the ward the dominant thinking was that the rivers are flowing into the lake this Terminal Lake which has no effect on water gets salty lets use the water for a good purpose lets use it for farming lets use it for the urban areas what happened was that you know let water go in and there is evaporation the lake got smaller salt is on its bed and then when you get when the salt is below and it becomes a big disaster did the whole region has been affected by and now a lot of investments should be made in order to restore the lake if that is not only a dream. Sediments or a very fine soils and once they dry out their easily mobilised into the atmosphere and some of the dustiest regions in the planet are usually due to drought. Lakebeds good example United States and the early Twentieth Century the city of los angeles tapped lake owens as a source for Drinking Water and a short time later that lake was dry or almost totally dry and to this day it was number one source of dust in the atmosphere in north america. Q eight this city lives under the shadow of dust storms with around twenty one here. In summer almost every day people are breathing in dusty air. Kuwait is in the main pathway of winds bringing dust it blows in from the sun harra in the west and in summer the shema winds from the northwest bring dust from syria and iraq. It is one of the worst effect in the region and most of the tajik to his of dust storms and kuwait and dr ali al disorient Research Team know all about dust from firsthand experience dust builds up on cars and windows and on other surfaces such as solar panels and its getting was they got amount of dust increased focus on the amount of dust each side from two thousand five hundred to one hundred twenty tons better quit. Now its reached the top of two thousand and eleven she is that three hundred seventy tons becomes elsewhere so a huge amount of dust has been deposited. Inhaling all of this stuff that has serious consequences associated with hyundai have a great impact on human health. Its very bad for you to breathe in following silica dust it carries allen germs which can you know be fungal spores with back to area which can affect you and cause hospital misuse or even death. Dr ahmed is an allergy specialist and consultant at the q a child and allergy clinic. Most of his patients suffer from the affects of dust and absolution in the. Dust affects all people every god of the genetic predisposition and when you think about the air in kuwait the air in kuwait is full of dust as well as chemicals that come from the oil industry as well as that comes from pollution from cars as of the same time you have a lot of pollen. In that if so if you like you can say you have a cocktail of of chemicals into that here. Almost one in five of kuwaits residents suffer from asthma. People live with the condition year round but dont see a spike in admissions when the dust storms arise. During the dust storm season the number of patients visiting our clinic increased to double the usual day and some of them they get severe attacks that requires hospital admission and and tense of king. Q a two resident mokhtar has suffered from dust related asked for fifteen years. While one of the houses than the pill i was told my ass mom was caused by the air. That makes me feel constricted when i breath i have difficulty speaking it feels like my airways are tightening up sharply i cant breathe normally out here but the. The good news for me its not just a seasonal allergies like some people think the condition stays with you all the time. With or without a location you cant function. Passages close up secular we have other stuff you have to take medication or you wont be able to breathe if you dont youll suffer constantly want them. President hunted on a merry show some of the measures kuwaitis used to try to prevent dust particles getting into their homes. And then head a month on a second here were now standing in a residential area and looking at the waste land over there it feels like youre out in the desert i did and this is where our houses and that is you know you try to plant some extra greenery on the surrounding lands here or and why youve got various types of trees and plants like meant for example. That we use these plants in our cooking but theyre also there to help with the dust because there are less trapped the dust thats near and give us a bit more protection from it when a storm comes. So that way theres not so much dust in the air for us to breathe in. Our. Weve got a fountain at the entrance of the house its for decoration but its also there to catch the dust and stop it getting inside yes thats right look what the most important thing that you see in every kuwaiti house is shutters and this is the most crucial thing to protect against the dust that this is. What. Countries across the world see an increase in hospital admissions because of her spirit problems the very young and the very old a particularly vulnerable. For them poor air quality can be no. Threatening. Nearly seven Million People dying prematurely because of air quality much of which is a complex mixture of dust that has got pollutants carried with it means that it is the number one killer the number one nonCommunicable Diseases that we are trying to tackle today. Tracking q eight dr alice ariz team collect dust for analysis from nearly fifty sites across the country. Dust is complex material its chemical and mineral composition varies depending on where it comes from these variations have a bearing on its Health Impact the size of dust particles is key and assessing their impact on health the kuwaiti scientists measure the size range by looking at the light scattered when a laser beam is shown through the sample. The size of the particle is very important and causing a disparity problems. Eighty five percent of dust size in kuwait is ten micro meters and thats the size that usually cause respiratory complaint and exacerbation of us. When we breathe in dust particles smaller than ten micro meters the pm ten particles become lodged in the lungs causing breathing difficulties even smaller particles pm two point five can actually cross directly into our bloodstream. These small particles interfere with the gas exchange. And result to severe spread to the diseases. Scientists at institutions across the world are doing further tests that add to the analysis. Claire cook is a mineralogist at the university of sheffield in the u k. She leads in a bar a tree studying soil and dust particles but if not now is the dust and a scanning electron microscope and not a minute when my can find flight three hundred times faster the scalp on this image is fifty microns roths and suit these principles really really very smoothly thats an individual one but they also will marry all together. In big clumps so you can see theres a whole different distribution of sizes some of them very small and some of. The chemical elements can also be identified by the microscope ok so this is all elements who might have been in the dust some just a night out to have a look at the individual elements say his all original sample of dust with very bright spots. And im not right on school seems to correspond to some lets which may be present as a heavy metal in the sample the other things that weve got present all magnesium. All say Silicon Valley menuhin calcium and a small amount inside of it says well and you can see that some of these are very well correlated say for example aluminum and so that can occur in the same location. Finding lead in just one small sample could be a one off but many of the other elements are commonly present. The dust isnt purely mineral sticking to these particles there may be materials such as pollen and bacteria. Studies show that these contaminants can make breathing problems was when you go out into the desert and you know you you look at you you see a lot of dirt and topsoil and you you know see any growth. No trees no brush no anything and you think its sterile well its not even in the most a habitable regions if you reach down you pick between your index finger in your thumb i would be about a gram of topsoil you would have anywhere from ten thousand to a billion bacterial cells. Dust is clearly a major house and so theres an urgent need to understand the behavior of dust storms to help people cope with their impact. Or three to. Start up. One of the best ways to study dust storms is by satellites orbiting the. People didnt understand the intensity and how far these storms could move until we have satellite imagery. And nasa has over twenty earth observing satellites that are monitoring constantly different components of the energy and water and currents using satellites were able to get a global picture of the land surface and different components of the land surface for example you can monitor the type and amount of vegetation in addition you can also tell how wet yes well is by using microwaves so if you know how wet surfaces and you have a better idea of the intensity interation and locations of potential customers. Thats this go to space center is the Largest Organization in the walt monitoring the earth the soda system and the universe. Ten thousand people and several hundred scientists specialize in the can. With the information succulents gather from the sea and as scientists build computer models that help them simulate cost and future conditions. Talk to peter conoco is one of the team studying particles in the atmosphere. So this is an animation from a global earth so. To model that we run here at nasa. What were simulating in this are the distributions of what we call aerosols or particles in the atmosphere and the different colors represent different kinds of these particles and they come from all kinds of different sources so the blue colors are from sea spray thats blown up by the winds at the surface of the sea the greener colors come from smoke sources and so there we have individual fires that are going off in the model and emitting smoke into the atmosphere and its transported over long distances the whiter colors correspond to what we call anthropogenic pollutants so things that come from power plants or car emissions and so you can see places especially in china or in the east coast of the United States or even in europe where a lot of these pollutants are emitted and transported and then finally the red or colors that we have correspond to dust storms and so in that case what were looking at is the effect of the surface winds blowing across a region that has a lot of fine particles that can be blown up into the air and blown by the winds over very long distances. Using models like this help scientists understand whats happening in the earths atmosphere. Of the projects concentrate on collecting actual data about atmospheric particles dr robert levy has been working on a long time global aerosol rapoport. So this is so that the time series of from the modus chair a satellite we are trying to create a global observations of aerosol these are not models user based on camera like images how it works is satellites measure light reflected from the earth and you can see that theres places on the globe where you see lots of aerosol which is a bright orange color and you can see the hot spots around the globe you see the dust in africa biomass burning in the amazon. What we dont have from a satellite is exactly what its made out of and you can get a sense of what kind it is if its dust smoke pollution one place that you do see least in the fifteen year record we have is there seems to be an increase in the middle east along the the Arabian Peninsula and in that region and it seems to be a significant increase. Nasa studies backup what people on the ground can see for themselves because they wanted to. Let me that these satellite studies are now being put to practical news. Nasa shows its data with other Research Groups who are developing a global sand and dust storm early Warning System. This form a church in the spanish city of boston mona is now well center for science. The interior is taken up by the massive mary nostrum three supercomputer used by Research Scientists across the water. One project is to predict dust storms in this case for europe the middle east and north africa. Other centers in china japan and korea cover the asia region and the aim ultimately is to alert people when a dust storm is expected. The role of course want somebody to provide every day the phosphor for north africa youve got these. Costs for cost forecasting is very similar to what. The page but also the we write based on this i have. Way less when youre going to have more or less cost is how much. Basically what were producing now are you doing. This is a full cost from the boss alone a group for three days in june twenty sixth seen. The high concentrations a yellow and brown. But the resolution and accuracy arent yet up to the standard or detail of whether for costs. In fact are those that require an even more computing time than what we would require its only by having a machine like the one we have i think that were going to want before we left the us. And not only the dutch makers themselves i think the management of the deeds of these would be with you would you see the order of the device. Be done if we see. The boss alone or a nasa scientists know their full cost would be helped if they had better local data from the countries concerned the other thing that we need to bring in is more data that comes from the ground that will help us refine things like the maps that we use for our dust sources and even have them evolving over time by including some information about vegetation and economics and how that will influence things like dust sources. I feel. More makes Data Collection impossible. Conflicts in iraq and more recently syria have actually watched some of the problem of dust storms. And the energies of the people consumed by conflict i survival. A hit. Man the problem that we have in our region is the conflicts the instability the ongoing violence and terrorism feed. That is i would. The situation. Unfortunately a lot of the track to be arkells in the driving of the desert surface by the combatants has disturbed the desert surface and made it worse. The effects of war activities especially in iraq and syria because of huge amount to petition to have been destroyed im talking about need for tissue which make new sources of dust. In the past. If we have a dos the song generated in a place like syria and iraq it is very different from das a song which is generated from place law. Or u. A. E. Because in places like iraq and syria we have had conflicts for years so we have toxic elements which could be attach to surface in. The Barcelona Team charted a rise in dust levels across the wider region from two thousand to two thousand and twelve. Blue shows winter months green shows some. Scientists have also observed an increase in temperature in the middle east over the past eighty years. And over the same period a decrease in rainfall. Even before the wars these conditions were damaging particularly for agriculture many farms on. The gulf on one cities so theres a lot of land. Disputes with the ocean what with the forest all fields these are all exposed. Syria wasnt before a source now its a huge city of dust also the. Area between the douglas mountains and tigris river we found a huge amount because this war affected by war activities multiple war fiftys so drained farms and abundant farms became a huge source of dust in fact from this region. The city of us in who is a stand southwestern iran is now one of the most polluted cities on the planet partly because of dust blowing in from iraq. The marshlands in southern iraq address the affecting all our western southwestern cities like that was. Part of it is also coming from neighboring countries hard coming from the hot spots that we have inside the country in the areas which are prolonging to soil erosion. On two sectors twenty fourteen was hit by a spectacular dust storm. Five people were killed and thirty injured flights were counselors there were numerous Car Accidents on the city was plunged into darkness. When this happens in a Nations Capital people take notice. As well as the social impact the Economic Cost of events like this is devastating. Economists calculate the dust storms cost the middle east and north africa around twelve billion u. S. Dollars every year. So theres a pressing need for practical remedies or anything another one of the first priorities is to talk hold a certification. In kuwait on the elder sorrys team are experimenting with native doesnt plans to try to stabilize the soil. These drought tolerant plants have extensive root systems which help prevent soil from blowing away this is really our area it was a pretty area in the boston quiett though it is prohibited in question two thousand and three so all the quarters was dumped and zeal for detention was in this area before now areas rehabilitated again by using native plants in order to form a very good need to fly from the region. Weve planted about one hundred ten thousand native plants in the area music native plants captured huge amount of dust and sand around the plant it wasnt there before so this kind of. Is formed by the dust and sand transported by wind its contents a lot of nutrients up to ninety percent of organic matter inside this plant for example we see it is common name is called of sort of the its very good one in fact in capturing the sound of a plant of fact we see it here this one is another branch called shall we this this instead of in so it wasnt there before so this blobs capture the amount of sand and dust and can reduce the take the negative effect to dust. Native plants is the Major Solutions that give an example how its not. A plant which can control up to ten metre of sand and dust this is a single plant what if its thousands of plants. Satellite data can also play a role in improving land and Water Management. In twenty fifteen nasa launched a new satellite. The satellite makes direct measurements of the soil moisture every few days. You understand how much waters in the land surface that can really help you forecasting and monitoring droughts and floods. What were seeing here the red and yellow colors represent precipitation and the orange and blue colors are the changes and so when were sure on the average blue color spread percent wetter areas and red colors represent drier areas so if you have a direct observation of the amount of more sure and the answer for us and you can improve your understanding of the amount of moisture in the root zone thats a very very important variable for improving your understanding of crops. Even they are saluting you know i was good to see. That it was fun words. For People Living in dust storm areas new technology could help nowadays its possible to check the dust for costs online. These phone calls from the boss in a website all part of the global early Warning System there updated daily it provides a map with details off doest concentration in the middle east and north africa if you zooming around syria and saddam part of iran we see a hard concentration up dogs the yellow color shows high concentration the dark brown is really hard concentration off to us he she is beyond what beyond limits so you can see what happens every hour in next seventy two hours the full costs of becoming ever more accurate. In future they could help airports schools and Emergency Services to plan ahead. Atmospheric dust has always been with us and there are some benefits. This is a very positive impacts from dust storms blowing around the planet many of the soils in the caribbean islands the clays came from north africa and it enabled the precolumbian indians to build plate clay pipe. And without that dust blowing across and building up in the soils that the clay wouldnt be in the caribbean you wouldnt find. Dust also contains valuable new transfer plants. So when the rain forest from north africa the dust flows over it goes into south america during the north Northern Hemisphere is winter and moves down in there and many of the plants derive their nutrients and are fertilized from the west in the end the same with asian dust blowing across fertilizers some of the northern Hawaiian Island rain forests and sustains them so theres some very positive things. Science can play a pot in understanding predicting and preventing dust storms this knowledge the needs to be used by policymakers. And were very good in developing technologies for launching satellites and doing things but when it comes to policy heads many times we act stupidly we become stupid we dont understand the realities on the ground over dont care about the long term consequences of our policy. Very very Community Says of the cation is something that we need to tackle a very typical and its monday and since planting trees using proper irrigation make sure that we have a veggie to just cut it that avoids to aerosolize ation types. Of forethought hes a natural phenomena hes always going to do or. Better up off the top of the stuff to do we can but we can do a lot with run faster if. We still have time just talking to us but not all that size because you have better luck much. The same you have to be released to the public. This is a multinational own problem and he needs a multinational should lucius with countries indonesian have to come together and solve this problem. Dust storms a part of a wider Environmental Movement the wars on conflicts of the region will eventually be over when they are the environmental problems one took on the way. This is the deadliest come to light from the sun and lets go right to our correspondent he is in central istanbul joined by the show a couple of you know what i call correspond lets bring in approach action thats here from our poland at desk thats going to will be god help us a correspondent in frankfurt on those stories in just a minute but first this news just in its all about the prospective cancer d. W. News. What do you think what do you get for fifty cents. For fish that. Know a lot. Of the did not have which today is such a big stinking caulfields malta lobster did you know it cost fifty cents to feed long hungry child for one full day. Good thing to feed one day. Game oh brune numbers that are all with the shared a meal you can share your most children with just fifty cents and a tap on your smartphone. Together we can end Global Hunger trees dumb of the hour. This is deja vu news live from berlin missiles target a major air base in syria this just hours after the u. S. Of the Syrian Government would pay a quote of big price for an alleged chemical weapons attack on women and children over the weekend the u. S. Though did not use carrying out the missile strike so who is responsible