In the paper application of lidars for investigation of aerosol particle size distribution and for observation of aerosol consisting of solid state particles is presented. For size distribution the multiwavelength lidar and original method of data analysis was applied. For registration of dust transported to Central Europe from Sahara and Middle East deserts analysis of depolarization of the backscattered signals was used. In order to solve the lidar equation measurements of total atmospheric optical depth by means of Microtops sun photometer was done. Mean size and the aspect ratio of dust particles were determined by comparing of lidar observations with data from T-matrix calculations.