Taiwan's rivers dry during the winter, exposing large areas of river bed and leading to airborne aeolian river dust. This study used PM₁₀ and windspeed data taken from monitoring stations local to the Zhuoshui River (the river with the largest exposed area in Taiwan) to investigate the relationship between airborne river dust and air quality, and subsequently to estimate river dust emissions. During river dust events, PM₁₀ concentrations were significantly and positively correlated with wind speeds exceeding 5 m/s (the critical wind speed). FPG Lunbei station, located downwind (south of the river) and the closest station to the river, recorded an average hourly PM₁₀ concentration of 189 ± 193 μg/m³ an average correlation coefficient (r) of 0.94 between hourly PM₁₀ concentration and average hourly wind speed, an average annual dust occurrence rate of 15%, and a maximum PM₁₀ concentration exceeding 1000 μg/m³. PM_2.5 increased with PM₁₀, albeit at a disproportional rate. When hourly PM₁₀ concentration exceeded 200 μg/m³, most of the particulates in the dust were coarse particulates (PM_2.5–10). An hourly PM_2.5/PM₁₀ ratio of <20% was used to determine whether air quality is affected by river dust. As the PM₁₀ concentration increases, the PM_2.5/PM₁₀ ratio decreases. It was concluded that soil moisture and surface roughness must be added into the estimations for producing simulated data. With these added, simulated results were highly consistent with observed hourly PM₁₀ concentrations, with a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.82. The simulations of hourly PM₁₀ concentration were highly accurate and indicated that river dust from the Zhuoshui River contributed to substantial increases in downwind PM₁₀ concentrations. December was the worst single month, accounting for 28.0% of PM₁₀ dust created by the Zhuoshui River in the entire year. Air quality was, however, severely reduced just south of the Zhuoshui River throughout the fall and winter.