Dust emission source characterization for visibility hazard assessment on Lordsburg Playa in Southwestern New Mexico, USA

In drylands around the world, ephemeral lakes (playas) are common. Dry, wind-erodible playa sediments are potent local and regional sources of dust and PM(10) (airborne particles with diameters less than 10 μm). Dust clouds often cause sudden and/or prolonged loss of visibility to travelers on downwind roadways. Lordsburg Playa, in southwestern New Mexico, USA is bisected by Interstate Highway 10. Dust storms emanating from the playa have been responsible for numerous visibility-related road closures (including 39 road closures between 2012 and 2019) causing major economic losses, in addition to well over a hundred dust-related vehicle crashes causing at least 41 lost lives in the last 53 years. In order to improve understanding of the surfaces responsible for the dust emissions, we investigated the critical wind friction velocity thresholds and the dust emissivities of surfaces representing areas typical of Lordsburg Playa’s stream deltas, shorelines, and ephemerally flooded lakebed using a Portable In-Situ Wind ERosion Laboratory (PI-SWERL). Mean threshold friction velocities for PM(10) entrainment ranged from less than 0.30 m s(− 1) for areas in the delta and shoreline to greater than 0.55 m s(− 1) for ephemerally flooded areas of the lakebed. Similarly, we quantified mean PM(10) vertical flux rates ranging from less than 500 μg m(− 2) s(− 1) for ephemerally flooded areas of lakebed to nearly 25,000 μg m(− 2) s(− 1) for disturbed delta surfaces. The unlimited PM(10) supply of the relatively coarse sediments along the western shoreline is problematic and indicates that this may be the source area for longer-term visibility reducing dust events and should be a focus area for dust mitigation efforts.