A review of techniques and technologies for sand and dust storm detection

Sand and dust storms (SDSs) are common phenomena in many parts of the world, which offer serious hazards to the environment, economy and health. An early warning of the approaching SDS would allow people to take precautionary measures and help minimize its terrible effects on the daily life. This requires continuous monitoring of the fugitive dust, sandstorms and movements of sandbanks in a certain area. Several technologies for monitoring of the dust and other environmental changes are available, such as lookout-tower, video-surveillance, sensory information, satellite imagery, unmanned aerial vehicle and hybrid approaches. A particular technology is suitable only for detecting the certain types of SDS, but a hybrid approach can detect many types of SDS. In this paper, we provide a quick review of the techniques and technologies for SDS monitoring. We provide an overview of the data requirements, dust modeling and techniques for SDS detection and prediction. We also summarize, classify and compare different technologies for SDS detection and prediction, and propose that a hybrid approach consisting of satellite imagery and wireless sensor networks is best suitable for detecting and predicting SDSs of all types.