Wind-blown dust events contribute significantly to the air-borne particulate matter (PM)
pollution in the southwestern United States. Besides health problems, such as allergies,
eye-infections and asthma, which are commonly associated and/or aggravated by elevated PM in the
atmosphere, valley fever (coccidioidomycosis) is a special public health concern in the Southwest
and closely related to wind blown dust pollution. Our wind-blown dust modeling system is comprised
of the following several major components. Currently, the Dust REgional Atmospheric Model (DREAM)
is the backbone model of the system. It is Eta-model-based and has a dust transport module coupled online
with the NCEP/Eta model. The development of an on-line dust transport module coupled with the WRF/NMM is
ongoing. Once the latter work is done, the system will be able to use finer grid spacing, take more advantage
of high resolution remote sensing data, and provide higher resolution forecasts. The NASA observing system
remote sensing data is collected and/or retrieved to help identify/pinpoint desert dust sources or to be
used to evaluate the models. The high temporal and spatial resolutions of the satellite data are important
in capturing dust sources and source changes due to climate variability, agriculture activities, urban
development, and construction site changes. One of the satellite-data-based products is temporally dynamic
Aeolian erosion vulnerability maps for the Southwest. The satellite data sources include GOES, Landsat MMS,
Landsat TM, WiFS, with different spectral, temporal and spatial resolutions. The EPA and other agencies’
ground based PM observations at scattered sites are used in the model evaluation. In the mean time, remote
sensing data such as MODIS level 2, MODIS deep blue data and AERONET data are also used to evaluate spatial
coverage of dust model results. A web-mapping system is developed to provide dust simulations and forecasts
to public health clients and to deliver information to other public health decision systems.