CAPACITY BUILDING WORKSHOP ON SOURCE APPORTIONMENT OF DESERT DUST FOR WEST ASIAN COUNTRIES

UNEP West Asia Office in collaboration with the Environment Agency of Austria (EAA) is organizing this capacity building workshop with a focus on apportion the contribution of desert dust to the overall air quality.

The overall objective of the workshop is to strengthen capacities of West Asian countries in establishing methods to identify and quantify the contribution of desert dust to levels of Particulate Matter (PM). This will help the regulatory agencies with implementing and monitoring air quality goals.

• Outcomes of the Workshop:

By the end of the workshop, participants will have gained knowledge and skills:

1. to establish methods to forecast and identify desert dust events
2. to establish methods to quantify the contribution of desert dust to PM levels, and to discriminate desert dust from anthropogenic sources
3. to account for the contribution of desert dust to PM levels for compliance assessment
4. Recommendations on further work needed in the area of desert dust source apportionment for West Asian countries.