ORIGINAL ARTICLE Dust emission modeling for the western border region of Mexico and the USA Johana M. Carmona • Ana Y. Vanoye • Fabian Lozano • Alberto Mendoza Received: 24 July 2014 / Accepted: 10 February 2015 / Published online: 20 February 2015 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 Abstract The border area between northwestern Mexico and the southwestern USA is composed of arid and semi- arid regions that are highly vulnerable to wind erosion. As a result, dust resuspension events take place that result in episodes of high concentrations of fine particulate matter in the atmosphere. In winter, air quality standards on both sides of the border are often exceeded. However, accurate estimates of the emission of windblown dust are rare, par- ticularly for Mexico. In this study, emissions of particulate matter from mineral origin (dust) with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 and 10 lm (PM 2.5 and PM 10 , respectively) were estimated for the border area for a short winter episode (January 4–12, 2006). For this purpose, a mesoscale meteorological model and a wind erosion model were used. The wind erosion model had a horizontal spatial resolution of 4 km 9 4 km and a temporal resolution of 1 h. A georeferenced database of surface conditions obtained from satellite data was used in conjunction with soil parameter digital maps to generate the inputs required by the wind erosion model. The PM 10 emissions for the entire domain and episode were estimated at *643 g km -2 h -1 and the PM 2.5 emissions were estimated at *47 g km -2 h -1 . The wind erosion model was subject to three sensitivity tests based on perturbation of the input surface parameters. The model output was more sensitive to changes in soil parameters (soil density and plastic pres- sure) than to changes in land surface data (leaf area index and fraction of vegetation cover). Keywords Particulate matter Á Windblown dust emissions Á Dust resuspension Á Arid and semi-arid areas Introduction Emissions of particulate matter (PM) have a significant effect on the environment, climate and health. This is particularly the case with emissions of PM with a fraction small enough to remain suspended in the atmosphere for a longer time and that can be inhaled (i.e., particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 10 lm, PM 10 ). It is estimated that mineral dust is the most common emission source, by mass, of suspended PM in the world’s atmosphere (Mo ¨ller 2010). Mineral PM produced from the wind erosion of exposed soils is an important component of Earth’s atmosphere, especially over arid and semi-arid regions where the abundance of PM and strong vertical temperature gradients allow dust to enter the upper layers of the troposphere. From there, dust is transported over long distances (Thomas 2011). Although these particles tend to exist primarily in the coarse mode (PM with an aerodynamic diameter greater than 2.5 lm and less than 10 lm, typically expressed as PM 2.5–10 ), particles can also have sizes of less than 0.1 l. PM 10 concentrations in arid regions of Africa and Asia reach average values of 200–1000 lgm -3 , although values over 3000 lgm -3 have been recorded (e.g., Draxler et al. 2001; Han et al. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12665-015-4173-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J. M. Carmona Á A. Y. Vanoye Á A. Mendoza (&) Department of Chemical Engineering, Tecnolo ´gico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501, 64849 Monterrey, NL, Mexico e-mail: mendoza.alberto@itesm.mx F. Lozano Center for Environmental Quality, Tecnolo ´gico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey, Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501, 64849 Monterrey, NL, Mexico 123 Environ Earth Sci (2015) 74:1687–1697 DOI 10.1007/s12665-015-4173-5