The Great Plains and Midwest regions of the Unted States are seeing more and larger dust storms and higher levels of dust in the atmosphere. The increase has corresponded to an intensification of corporate agricultural practices in these regions–an example is the plowing of grasslands and marginal agricultural land in order to grow more corn for the production of biofuels. Even modest corn production on marginal land for biofuels has been more lucrative than receiving government payments to set the land aside for conservation.
The increase in dust storms–with significant environmental costs (like erosion) and sometimes tragic human costs–is ominous in regions that experienced the infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930’s:
Seven Dead After Dust Storm Causes Crashes on Interstate 55 in Illinois
Will these regions see another destructive “Dust Bowl” period?
What does the research say?
**updated February 2025**
*Fairley, P. (2022). How to rescue biofuels from a sustainable dead end: An environmentally friendly path forwards for liquid fuel derived from plants will depend on smarter agriculture and smarter regulation. Nature, 611, S15-S17.
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*Lambert, A., Hallar, A. G., Garcia, M., Strong, C., Andrews, E., & Hand, J. L. (2020). Dust Impacts of Rapid Agricultural Expansion on the Great Plains. Geophysical Research Letters, 47(20), e2020GL090347.
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*Thaler, E. A., Larsen, I. J., & Yu, Q. (2021). The extent of soil loss across the US corn belt. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(8).
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*Tong, D., Feng, I., Gill, T. E., Schepanski, K., & Wang, J. (2023). How Many People Were Killed by Windblown Dust Events in the United States? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
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