Combined Occurrence Frequency of Wind Speeds and Precipitation Amounts Conducive to Dust Dispersion from Disturbed Mine and Mill Sites in the United States, 2007?16

Dispersion of dust depends on many complex factors related to the nature of the disturbed materials, climate, dust control measures, and localized weather patterns. This dataset presents wind speed and rainfall as climate factors that influence dust dispersion. These two basic factors were identified as a subset of the many factors that can lead to dust dispersion. Arpacioglu and Er (2003) reviewed historical data from selected mine sites and suggested that days when the windspeed was at least 5.4 meters per second (m/s) at 10 meters above land surface and rainfall was less than 0.25 centimeter (cm) might lead to greater dust dispersion. Existing publicly available precipitation and wind speed data from NASA's North American Land Data Assimilation System Phase 2 (NLDAS-2), reflecting climatic conditions over a 10-year period in the United States, were used to assess the number of days between 2007 and 2016 that meet these criteria. The resulting dust dispersion index data sets are intended to indicate areas that exhibit criteria that are most likely to disperse dust particulates and fugitive dusts from disturbed mine and mill sites. Reference: Arpacioglu, C. B., and Er, C., 2003, Estimation of Fugitive Dust Impacts of Open Pit Mines on Local Air Quality-A case study, Bellavista Gold Mine, Costa Rica: 18th International Mining Congress and Exhibition of Turkey-IMCET 2003, Turkey, IMCET.