Washington: Thousands of Tons of Topsoil Lost in Dust Storm

Recommended by EDRO

Plume of Dust Plague Blinds Eastern Washington

Dust Plagues: An Increasingly Significant Threat as a Collapse Mechanism

Dust Storm in Eastern Washington [NASA Earth Observatory]

Visibility dropped to zero in parts of eastern Washington on October 4, 2009, as a large dust storm blew through. This image of the storm was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite shortly after noon (Pacific Daylight Time). According to local news, the storm brought strong winds gusting to 43 miles per hour in places that propelled the dust across the southeast corner of the state. After numerous multi-vehicle accidents, sections of Interstate 90 near the town of Moses Lake and several local roads had to be closed for several hours.

The dust storm persisted for several hours and was still visible when Aqua MODIS flew over the region at 2:00 p.m. local time. The Terra MODIS image shown here is available in multiple resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response System.

A thick, rippling plume of dust runs northeast to southwest through the center of the image. Dust stretches as far south as the cities of Pasco and Kennewick, which sit on opposite banks of the Columbia River. In the north, the dust seems to rise primarily from the pale golden squares of fields farmed using dryland agriculture, a common practice in arid eastern Washington. The dryland fields are larger and less colorful than the bright green and gold fields of irrigated agriculture near the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the center of the image.

Dryland farmers rely entirely on rainfall to sustain their crops, and as a result, do many things to preserve moisture in the soil. Some of these practices—leaving a field fallow after harvest to allow water to build in the soil for a year or covering the field with dry soil to prevent underlying moisture from evaporating—make dryland agriculture very prone to dust storms. These fields are likely either fallow or newly planted, probably with winter wheat, a common dryland crop in eastern Washington.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey and Holli Riebeek. [Edited by FEWW]

Related Links:

• More on Human-Induced Environmental Catastrophes
• The Dust Bowl

• The Mesopotamian Dust Bowl
• Iraq Faces Environmental Catastrophe
• Riyadh City May Collapse by 2010
• Iraq Ecocide Nears Totality
• Image of the Day: Sandstorm in Saudi Desert

• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Future Scenarios
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• World Problems: The Root Cause Matrix

• Australia: Uranium Dust Threat Real?
• And dust to dust …
• Australia: What can burn, will!

• Desertification: A Most Powerful Mechanism of Collapse
• No Good for Farming!

Iraq Ecocide Nears Totality

See also entry at EDRO:

Iraq Faces Environmental Catastrophe

Once a fertile land, Iraq is being desertified

Iraq is now entering its third year of drought, with no relief in sight. Wells, marshes and riverbeds are drying up, “turning arable land into desert, killing trees and plants, and generally transforming what was once the region’s most fertile area into a wasteland.” EDRO Wrote.

Nearly 30 years of war and occupation is finally taking its toll. As the drought [official corruption,] and mismanagement of land continue, the frequency and extent of sandstorms rise as if proportionally. The storms have become longer-lasting.

Drinking water shortages has plagued much of southern Iraq. “The fabled marshes of southern Iraq, drained by Saddam Hussein and then re-flooded after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, are drying up, and the traditional Marsh Arabs who depend on them for their livelihood are being forced to leave again.”

The Ministry of Agriculture reported that 90% of the land has either turned to desert or is experiencing severe desertification, with the remaining arable land eroding at an annual rate of 5%, LATimes reported.

Falling agricultural production means that Iraq, once a food exporter, will this year have to import nearly 80% of its food, spending money that is urgently needed for reconstruction projects.

EDRO said:

Plagued by frequent dust storms, Iraq is  being transformed from a fertile country to a dust bowl. Man-made disasters drive Iraq to the verge of ecological collapse.War of occupation and the near total destruction of infrastructure, drought and water shortages, desertification and sandstorms, collective ignorance and  pathological violence, fear and  political corruption and mismanagement of resources are accelerating the pace of destruction in Iraq, hastening the collapse of local and regional ecosystems.

A composite view of the Mesopotamian marshlands from a mosaic of four Landsat 1 images and two false-color, near-infrared images, 1973–1976. Dense marsh vegetation (mainly Phragmites australis) appears in dark red, seasonal lakes in blue, agriculture in pink, and permanent lakes in black. The red elongated patches along riverbanks are date palms. The three main marsh areas are Al-Hawizeh, Central, and Al-Hammar, labeled 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The city of Basrah is located at number 4.Modified from Richardson and colleagues (2005). (b) A Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper mosaic taken in 2000. Most of the drained marshes appear as grayish-brown patches, indicating dead marsh vegetation or low desert shrubs and dry ground. The white and gray patches indicate bare areas with no vegetation and, in some areas, salt evaporites or shells covering the bottoms of former lakes. By 2000, 85% of the 8926 square kilometers (km2) of permanent marsh in 1973 marshlands had been destroyed. Only 3% of the Central marsh and 14.5% of the Al-Hammar remained. Sampling sites: A, Al-Hawizeh; B, Central; C, Al-Hammar; D, Al-Sanaf; E, Abu Zarag; F, Suq Al-Shuyukh. MODIS satellite image courtesy of the United Nations Environment Programme, Iraq Marshlands Observation System. Image and caption source: Restoring the Garden of Eden: An Ecological Assessment of the Marshes of Iraq (pdf).

Iraq Dust Storms

Beginning in mid April,  and continuing through may, and June dust storms plagued Iraq. In late June/early July 2009, the worst dust storm in living memory struck Iraq, spreading throughout the region, NASA EO reported. A new storm lashed Iraq again at the end of July.

See early July images

Sandstorms in Iraq

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the frequency and duration of such storms have increased. Beginning in late June 2009, the worst dust storm in living memory struck Iraq and spread to neighboring countries. Another storm raged over Iraq again at the end of July. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of Iraq on July 30, 2009, the second consecutive day of heavy dust over the country. Thick dust blows southeastward over the Tigris and Euphrates floodplain and the Persian Gulf. The dust is thick enough to completely hide the land surface and water bodies below.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott. [Edited by FEWW]

Related Links:

• Iraq Faces Environmental Catastrophe
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Future Scenarios
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs

• Energy: 286W
• Failing Ecosystems
• Image of the Day: Sandstorm in Saudi Desert
• Drought and Deluge
• CO2e Links Page

• World CO2 Emissions
• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar
• New York Cognitive Dissonance
• World Problems: The Root Cause Matrix
• Giga Trends

• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t
• Protect Economy from Climate??!
• Blind scientists examining the economic elephant
• How Much Carbon Dioxide Does Your Money Make?
• Cosmic Scale Evil

• Index of Human Impact on Nature
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution
• Stop Burning Earth

Other Related Links:

• Mesopotamia Marshes [NASA/EO]
• Iraq marshes’ recovery ‘in doubt.’ BBC Website
• Restoring the Garden of Eden: An Ecological Assessment of the Marshes of Iraq (pdf)
• Daily Images of Iraq
• Vanishing Marshes of Mesopotamia (Landsat)
• Iraq in throes of environmental catastrophe, experts say [LATimes report]