The Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET) dependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) have organized a public event to present the new website of the Barcelona Dust Regional Center.

The new website is the result of the fruitful collaboration carried out over the last three years and seeks to improve the user experience through a new, more intuitive and organic design. At a high level of usability, the new website will facilitate access to observation and prediction products as well as information on research and training activities of the network of collaborators (researchers, data providers and user community) in North Africa, Middle East and Europe. It will also help build capacity of end-users to promote the use of observation and forecasting products to help address the risks associated with the presence of dust in the atmosphere.

Coordinated jointly by both institutions, the Barcelona Dust Regional Center (BDRC) is a regional center of the World Meteorological Organization specialized in forecasting dust and sand storms and coordinates the activities of the Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (SDS-WAS for short) for North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Since 2010, it has provided daily information to thousands of users focused on both the observation and forecasting of dust and sand storms, and is a benchmark in terms of research into their effects on weather and climate, as well as the associated impacts on health, air quality, and other socioeconomic sectors.