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The Sand and Dust Storm Assessment and Warning System (SDS-WAS) is a project coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) through the Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) program.
It was launched in 2007 in response to the need expressed by many WMO member countries for tools to better monitor and predict dust storms and to better understand their influence on weather and climate.
The Regional Center for North Africa, the Middle East and Europe was created in 2010 to coordinate SDS-WAS activities at the regional level. It is managed jointly by the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS). Since its creation, it has coordinated various scientific research initiatives at an international level, some with a marked interdisciplinary character. Various organizations from both the region and other parts of the world have participated in them, including national meteorological services, environmental agencies, research institutes and international organizations. The Regional Center's website has become a reference place where visitors can find the latest observations and predictions from the most advanced models. The Regional Center's activities include daily intercomparison of models and evaluation of forecasts by comparing them with observed ground and satellite data. Likewise, multi-model products are developed based on ensemble prediction techniques.
The Regional Center has participated in various initiatives of international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Coalition for the Control of Dust and Sand Storms of the United Nations, the Group of Experts on Scientific Aspects of the Maritime Environment (GESAMP) or the European Consortium for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).
The potential usefulness of dust forecasts has been widely recognized for more than a decade, so in 2013 the WMO Executive Council designated the consortium of AEMET and BSC-CNS to host the first Regional Meteorological Center Specialized in Dust Prediction and Atmospheric Sand in order to generate and distribute daily operational forecasts for North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The new center, called Barcelona Dust Forecast Center (BDFC), began its activity in February 2014.
The research activities of the Regional Center for North Africa, the Middle East and Europe and the operations of the Barcelona Dust Forecast Center will be unified as of 2022 into a single center, the so-called Barcelona Dust Regional Center (BDRC). The web portals were also unified into a single one (https://dust.aemet.es) where you can find all the prediction and observation products generated, as well as information on activities, projects, training and technical documentation.
