Increasing dust storms in Asia affecting health of Canadians, study says

TORONTO (CP) - A growing number of sandstorms as far away as China that researchers blame on climate change are contributing to an increase in health problems for Canadians, such as coughing, fevers and sore eyes, a new international report warns.

The study, co-authored by a Hamilton researcher and to be released Thursday, says global warming and population growth are drying out parts of the planet.

It ranks desertification - the transformation of fertile land into a desert, often by human activity or climate change - as one of Earth's chief environmental challenges for the future.

Remnants of swirling dust storms arising out of the Gobi Desert between northern China and southern Mongolia are crossing the Pacific Ocean and reducing air quality over North America, the report says.

"These have been documented as increasing in frequency and increasing in intensity," said Dr. Zafar Adeel, assistant director of a international water research facility funded by the United Nations and hosted at McMaster University in Hamilton.

"In some cases they carry as far as the west coast of North America, so it's a problem that's truly global in nature and it has really become much worse in the last 10 to 15 years."

Dust storms in the Sahara Desert related to desertification have also been contributing to the erosion of coral reefs in the Caribbean, the report found.

Over time, desertification could even create flocks of "environmental refugees" - people forced to leave homes in dryland areas because they would grow increasingly uninhabitable, Adeel warned.

"The area they leave behind is not managed anymore, so that likely gets worse, (and) the area where they are going is probably already under (population) stress," he said.

Canada's own Prairie provinces include a sizable amount of dryland that could also be at risk without proper care, he added.

"There is a significant fraction of (the) Prairies which is dryland, and one has to be careful about how those are managed and to make sure that desertification does not become an issue in this part of the world."

More than 40 per cent of the world is composed of dryland, where plant growth is limited by a lack of available fresh water. Worldwide, about two billion people live in dryland areas, half of them in poverty.

While numerous studies have suggested that global warming could cause seas and oceans to rise and rainfall to increase in some areas, drylands are experiencing a growing shortage of freshwater, Adeel said.

"It results in a much higher fraction of children under the age of five dying, and ten times as many when you compare with developed countries," Adeel said.

"The impact on well-being of people living in drylands is very immediate."

If governments in Canada and around the world don't seriously examine the effects of desertification, the ramifications could be irreversible, he warned.

"I think we really need to much better understand how fast this desertification is growing and where is it getting worse."

Parts of Central Asia and Africa, where severe droughts can happen on average once every 30 years, are most susceptible to the effects of desertification, the report says.

While the precise extent of desertification around the world is still unknown, three studies in the last 15 years have found 10 to 20 per cent of the planet's drylands have been affected, said Adeel, and even more could be at risk in the future, he warned.

The report recommends improving irrigation methods around the world to prevent overgrazing and water loss, alternative sources of energy such as solar power and encouraging alternative industries like ecotourism to lessen the impact of desertification.

Adeel's findings were the culmination of a three-year global study, entitled Ecosystem and Human Well-Being, being released Thursday to coincide with the United Nations World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.