Sand and dust storms (SDS) are a major disruptor in both the source areas where they occur and at distant locations. This critical review aims to address the question of whether mitigation and adaptation measures have been or can be implemented and what is the optimal scale of their implementation to negate the impacts of SDS in Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR)? Measures which differ in approach are also assessed by recording their successes, failures, and future challenges. We conclude that developing and implementing appropriate mitigation or adaptation measures for SDS at the local level is feasible but, at a wider scale, is a new challenge. This challenge is even more complex in areas like the EMR and the SDS sources affecting it, as it is a crossroad of air masses originating from three major SDS areas, which exhibit economic, political, and social diversity. This review also aims to identify successful mitigation strategies that have been used for similar environmental issues and to draw attention to the lack of adaptation measures in the region. This critical synthesis will serve as a guide for public stakeholders considering measures to mitigate or adapt to SDS based on their effectiveness and the area of implementation.

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the lockdown measures in 2020 on the urban air quality in Nicosia capital city, in Cyprus—an island-country in the East Mediterranean—which is often affected by transboundary dust pollution. The study focuses on three criteria pollutants, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), carbon monoxide (CO) and Particulate Matter (PM₁₀), taken from three Air Quality Monitoring Stations; two urban stations and one reference-background. The results of this study show that the decrease in traffic, which is the main source of high concentrations of pollutants in the urban area, reached up to 66.5% during the lockdown. At the beginning of the lockdown period, it exhibited a downward trend of 29% for CO concentration, and downward trend 43% for NO₂ and PM₁₀ concentrations. The NO₂ concentration exhibited an upward trend towards the end of the lockdown; with the indication that this was due to meteorological conditions relevant to the monitoring stations and the transport of NO₂ concentrations from sources that cannot be tracked. PM₁₀ concentrations exhibited a varying behaviour as observed in the trends, where the decreasing trend was followed by an increasing trend due to transboundary air pollution episodes occurring in the same period.