Assessment of Heavy Elements Pollution and Environmental Impacts of the Severe Dust Storm in Iraq on May 2022

Dust storms frequent in Iraq can have far-reaching consequences for the distribution and abundance of heavy and trace elements within the soil, ultimately influencing the dynamics of ecosystems. This study aims to identify the sources of the severe dust storm in Iraq on May 16, 2022, and assess the heavy element pollution and their environmental impacts. The results revealed that the hybrid-single-particle-Lagrange-integrated trajectory (HYSPLIT) model trajectory of the dust storm agreed with MODIS visuals. The primary dust storm sources are identified as follows: the first source is from the shared border region between Syria (south of Rif-Dimasshq) and Jordan (north of Al-Ruwaished), and the second is from the northwestern area of Iraq, specifically north of Anbar and south of Nineveh. The dust samples mainly consist of clay, sand, and metals, according to particle size analyses, with sizes ranging from 6 nm to 50 µm and increasing the concentrations of trace elements, which affect the ecosystem and the possibility of changing soil properties and increasing the amounts of heavy metals that adversely affect the environment and human health. The contamination factor values showed very high pollution for the elements (Ni, Ge, Se, Mo, Ag, Cd, Sb, Te, I, Hg, and Bi). The I-geo index indicated it was extremely polluted with heavy elements (Ge, Te, I, Hg, Bi, and Se). Using the contamination factor values for the elements (Pb, Ni, Cd, Zn, Cu, Cr, Hg, and Fe), the pollution load index was found to be 2.68, indicating environmental pollution.