Articles | Volume 25, issue 19
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12657-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-12657-2025
Research article
 | 
10 Oct 2025
Research article |  | 10 Oct 2025

Toxic dust emission from drought-exposed lake beds – a new air pollution threat from dried lakes

Qianqian Gao, Guochao Chen, Xiaohui Lu, Jianmin Chen, Hongliang Zhang, and Xiaofei Wang

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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-596', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Apr 2025
    • AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Xiaofei Wang, 27 Jun 2025
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-596', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Apr 2025
    • AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Xiaofei Wang, 27 Jun 2025

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload
AR by Xiaofei Wang on behalf of the Authors (27 Jun 2025)  Author's response   Author's tracked changes   Manuscript 
ED: Publish as is (18 Jul 2025) by Yves Balkanski
AR by Xiaofei Wang on behalf of the Authors (23 Jul 2025)  Manuscript 
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Short summary
Numerous lakes are shrinking, owing to climate change and human activities, releasing pollutants from dried lake beds as dust aerosols. The health risks remain unclear. Recently, Poyang and Dongting lakes faced record droughts, exposing 99 % and 88 % of their areas. We show that lake bed dust can raise PM10 to 637.5 μg m-³ and exceed non-carcinogenic (HQ = 4.13) and Cr carcinogenic  (approx. 2.10 × 10⁶)  risk thresholds, posing growing health threats.
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