Turning Dust into Data: Mapping the Economic Impact of Sandstorms

Turning Dust into Data: Mapping the Economic Impact of Sandstorms

Sandstorms are often treated as environmental ormeteorological events, visibility issues, air-quality alerts, short-termdisruptions. Economically, that framing is misleading.

In reality, sand and dust storms are recurrent, spatiallyconcentrated economic shocks. They erode productivity, damageinfrastructure, reduce energy output, and place persistent strain on publicfinances. Yet they remain one of the least systematically modelled climaterisks in economic decision-making.

This is precisely the gap economic impact mapping is designed to close.

Why sandstorm impacts remain underestimated

Unlike floods or hurricanes, sandstorms are regionally focused,and rarely generate a single case-study loss. However, their impacts are incremental, distributed, and cumulative, which makes them easy to overlook, especially through traditional economists.

Three key issues portray the impact caused:

• Indirect  losses: reductions in productivity, worsened health conditions, asset degradation, and efficiency losses. The problem being that these rarely appear in disaster damage accounts.
• Highly  spatial impacts: exposure depends on land use, wind corridors, infrastructure, and the patterns of settlements. Meaning that current models lack resolution and depth to provide resilience and adequate response.
• Losses accumulate over time: repeated events as opposed to single events continuously degrade assets and capital long before a “disaster” threshold is crossed. Resulting continued economic drain.

As the environment continues to change, and desertification intensifies, these overlooked losses increasingly act as a drag on economic growthrather than a temporary shock.

From hazard to economic impact

Understanding sandstorms economically means shifting the question from how severe the storm is to:

• Who  and what is exposed?
• Which  sectors are affected, and through which channels?
• How  do repeated events alter long-term economic and energy system performance?

When analysed through this lens, sandstorms emerge as amulti-sector system shock, affecting labour markets, health systems, infrastructure, agriculture, and critically the energy sector.

Solar generation, transmission networks, and cooling systemsare particularly vulnerable, making dust exposure an increasingly important factor in energy security and transition planning.

What the data shows: evidence from MENA

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), sand and dust storms are a structural feature of the climate system, not an anomaly. Their economic impacts are increasingly well documented.

The table below summarises observed and reported impactranges by sector, drawing on international institutions and regionalanalyses. These figures reflect recurring and cumulative effects, not isolated disaster events.
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Indicative economic impacts of sandstorms in MENA

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Two insights worth noting:

1. Energy,health, and labour losses dominate the short-term impacts, directly affecting economic output and service sufficiency.

2. Infrastructureand asset exposure drives long-term economic drag, particularly where sandstorms reoccur frequently.

As these losses are continuous, modest reductions inexposure should deliver significant economic value from investing into risk mitigation.

Mitigation as an economic opportunity

Once sandstorm impacts are mapped spatially and monetised,mitigation shifts from an environmental expense to a strategic economic investment.

Key benefit streams include:

• Preserved  labour productivity through reduced exposure and downtime
• Avoided  health costs and improved workforce resilience
• Higher energy yields from protected solar assets and more reliable grids
• Extended infrastructure lifespans, lowering capital replacement needs
• Reduced fiscal volatility and improved investment confidence

For energy systems in particular, mitigation can materially improve project bankability, operational reliability, and long-term returns, especially in dust-exposed regions pursuing rapid solar expansion.

Why impact mapping matters now

Sand and dust storms are intensifying in many regions due toland degradation, water stress, and climate change, often overlapping with areas of rapid population growth and energy investment.

Yet they remain underrepresented in economic planning precisely because their impacts are spatial, cross-sectoral, and cumulative.

ESIMAP are the leading experts on the modelling of economic impacts from dust storms. Through turning dust into data, decision-makers cansee where losses occur, and what interventions deliver the greatest return on investment.

Sandstorms may begin as a physical phenomenon, but their consequences are economic, systemic, and increasingly energy-critical. Treating them as such is no longer optional.

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