The impact of sand and dust storms on agriculture in Iraq

ABSTRACT

Sand and dust storms are a common natural hazard in arid and dry areas of the Middle East and North Africa severely affecting human life and economic sectors, including agriculture production. In this paper, I explore the potential impact of sand and dust storms (SDS) on agricultural sub-sectors in Iraq by combining the household-level production and socioeconomic data with the climate dataset to allow the empirical assessment of agricultural impacts due to dust storms. I find compelling evidence that exposure of crops and livestock to dust storms significantly diminish agricultural productivity, vegetation cover and have significant bearings on the household welfare. Our analysis reveals a 1.1% reduction in the value of crop production as a result of an additional SDS event. This corresponds to about 0.045% losses in the GDP of Iraq, an amount equivalent to about $0.1 billion. Crop yields are reduced significantly ranging from 0.9% to 3% for an additional day of sand and dust storms.

KEYWORDS:

• Disaster risk reduction
• sand and dust storms
• agricultural impacts
• econometric analysis
• Iraq

SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION CODES:

• O13
• Q50
• Q51
• C21

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Raphael, Nimrod, Water Crisis in Iraq: The Growing Danger of Desertification, The Middle East Media Institute: https://www.memri.org/reports/water-crisis-iraq-growing-danger-desertification-0

2 The data are publicly available at https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datasets, accessed March 2021.

3 The data are publicly available at http://www.openforis.org/tools/earth-map.html, accessed March 2021.

4 The data are publicly available at https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/2334, accessed March 2021.

5 Donum is the common unit of measurement for the area in Iraq and some other countries in the Middle East. 1 donum is equivalent to about 1/10 of a hectare.