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Combined measurements acquired with an elastic-Raman lidar and a sun photometer have been used to characterize the aerosol load during heavy dust events in the southeast of Italy (40degrees 20'N, 18degrees 6'E). It is shown that lidars and sun photometers are peculiar tools to follow the spatial and temporal evolution of dust outbreaks and get complementary data to characterize desert-aerosol optical properties. Elastic-Raman lidar measurements have been used to investigate particle vertical distributions, retrieve aerosol optical thicknesses (AOT), and characterize desert-aerosol optical properties by extinction to backscatter ratios. The single scattering albedo, the particle size distributions, the Angstrom coefficient and the AOTs at different wavelengths have been retrieved by sun photometer measurements. Results on the correlation between the AOTs retrieved by lidar and sun photometer measurements are reported.