Tracking Dust Sources and Associated Human Health Impacts Around a Shrinking Inland Sea

Windblown dust has long been an air quality and public health concern among residents living around California’s Salton Sea, a region characterized by serious socioeconomic and health outcome disparities. Dropping water levels and unique biogeochemistry within the Salton Sea water itself have raised concerns regarding the human health impacts of drying sediments exposed on shrinking shorelines, as well as potential lake spray emissions from the water surface. As particles emitted from different surface types can differ greatly in terms of composition, size distribution, and other properties, variability in the resulting health impacts of particulates reaching communities in the region may likewise be source dependent. Here we share analyses of surface-specific health outcomes associated with windblown coarse PM around the region using a novel back-trajectory surface apportionment and case crossover methodology. We further discuss attempts to better understand and mitigate the unique issues linked to these emissions across the basin. Finally, we explore similarities and differences connecting evaporating inland lakes and seas worldwide, as well as some of the opportunities for sharing knowledge and tools to address air quality changes in the increasingly dry, dusty future facing the Salton Sea basin and other analogous regions.