2025/04/26 by Adeyemi A. Adebiyi, Md. Ghulam Kibria, John T. Abatzoglou +5 · 1 voice
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Aeolian processes and effects #Agriculture #Archaeology #Atmospheric aerosols and clouds #Environmental science #Fire effects on ecosystems #Geography
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s43247-025-02306-0
openalex publication_date 2025/04/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract Air pollution remains a major problem in many parts of California, significantly impacting public health and regional climate. However, the contribution of anthropogenic dust from agricultural sources, among major pollutants in California’s semi-arid Central Valley, remains largely unclear. Here, we used the Cropland Data Layer from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify crop types and land use/cover and leveraged satellite-derived estimates of major dust events between 2008 and 2022 over California. We identified fallowed land—an unplanted agricultural land parcel—as a key anthropogenic dust source in California. Specifically, we find that the Central Valley accounts for about 77% of total fallowed land areas in California, where they are associated with about 88% of major anthropogenic dust events. We also find that the geographic coverage of these fallowed lands expanded between 2008 and 2022 with associated increasing anthropogenic dust activities. Additionally, these anthropogenic dust activities are sensitive to the drought severity over the fallowed lands, with potential cumulative effects on downstream dust burden during prolonged multi-year drought conditions. Overall, our results have important implications for public health, including increased risk for Valley fever and for regional climates, such as increases in extreme precipitation and snowmelt over the Sierra Nevada.