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Springer Nature
Rising dust pollution across Europe
Dust concentrations increased consistently across much of Europe between 2012 and 2021, with some of the largest rises in southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, according to research in Nature. This trend may be associated with changes in atmospheric circulation and long-term desertification in North Africa. The authors warn that worsening dust pollution could increasingly affect air quality and public health.
Mineral desert dust is a major component of airborne particulate matter and can harm health, including through increased risks of asthma and mortality. Although rising dust outbreaks have been reported in parts of Europe, whether this trend extends across the continent and what is driving it have been unclear.
Petros Vasilakos, Imad El-Haddad, Kaspar Daellenbach, and colleagues compiled around 18,500 daily measurements of dust-related metals (aluminium, titanium, silicon, calcium, and iron) from 103 rural and urban sites across Europe and used them to develop a machine learning model of daily dust concentrations between 2012 and 2021. They found that dust concentrations increased across most of Europe during the study period, with some of the largest increases occurring over Italy, the Adriatic Sea and the Aegean Sea. By 2021, transported dust accounted for 31% of the World Health Organization annual PM10 (particulate matter that are 10 micrometres or smaller in diameter) guideline value in southern Europe. Here, residents experienced an average of about 46 dust episodes per year, with dust levels during these events associated with about a 0.67% increase in daily mortality.
The authors found that while dust pollution events did not become more frequent, they became more severe in parts of southern Europe. Analysis of Alpine ice cores also indicated that dust deposition has increased by around 110% since preindustrial times, suggesting a long-term rise in dust linked to increasing aridity in North Africa and changes in atmospheric circulation patterns.
The authors conclude that dust pollution may become a growing challenge for public health and air quality goals. However, they note that measurement coverage was limited in some parts of Europe, including northeastern Europe, the Balkans and Scandinavia.
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Nature
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Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
Funder:
The publication was made possible with funding from the ARMOUR project provided
by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (BAFU); the SCENE project; the Swiss Data
Science Center (SDSC) collaborative projects grant (C20-08); the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (2023YFC3710400) and the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (42207122); CESAM by FCT (UID/50017/2025 (https://doi.org/10.54499/
UID/50017/2025) and LA/P/0094/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/LA/P/0094/2020)); the
PATOS project (Particolato Atmosferico in Toscana) financed by Tuscany Region; the KALOS
project financed by Calenzano (Florence) municipality. Samples in France were collected
within many research and air quality assessment programmes, including the programmes
CARA (financed by the Ministry of Environment within the LCSQA), DECOMBIO, CAMERA,
SOURCES and QAMECS (all financed by Ademe), QAMECS (financed by University Grenoble
Alpes), OPE – Andra (financed by Andra) and support from Atmo AuRA, Atmo Sud, Atmo Grand
Est, Atmo Haut de France and Atmo Normandie for the sampling and analyses. Samples in
Granada were collected within many research projects at the University of Granada and the
Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. The IDAEA-CSIC thanks the support from the
Spanish Ministry of Environment (MITERD), from MICIU through the AIRPHONEMA project
(PID2022-142160OB-I00/MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER EU), from Generalitat de
Catalunya (Direcció General de Qualitat Ambiental i Canvi Climàtic and AGAUR, 2017 SGR41)
and from the Madrid Council. We also acknowledge support to the University of Huelva, by
grants PID2021-126986OB-I00 and PID2024-157355OB-I00, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/
501100011033, and the Environmental Agency of the Andalusian Government. The research
leading to these results was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the
Czech Republic as the Large Research Infrastructure Support Project – ACTRIS Participation of
the Czech Republic (ACTRIS-CZ, LM2023030). This research has been supported by the Marie
Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Postdoctoral Programme grant agreement No.101081355-SMASH,
the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (programme grants no. P1-0385, I-0033) and
the Municipality of Kanal ob Soči. The UK measurements were supported by the Natural
Environmental Research Council (NERC) through the Integrated Research Observation System
for Clean Air (OSCA) project (Manchester grant ref. NE/T001984/1, London grant ref. NE/
T001909/2), part of the Clean Air Strategic Priorities Fund. Open Access funding provided by
Lib4RI – Library for the Research Institutes within the ETH Domain: Eawag, Empa, PSI & WSL.
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