DESERTS

A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less
than enough to support growth of most plants.

Most deserts have an average precipitation of less than 400 mm.

Deserts can also be described as areas where more vegetation in deserts is sparse or non-
existent. Deserts take up 20% of the land surface

Types of deserts

 Arid
 Semi-arid
 Extremely arid

Causes of deserts

Natural causes

(1) Geological location

Deserts located on the western sides of the continents between latitudes 15º & 30º. This is
mainly due to the cold oceanic currents emanating from the poles such as Benguella currenst
responsible for the existence of the Kalahari of Namib deserts.

These ocean currents bring with them cold and dry winds that lead to the formation of moist
fog.

(2) Rain shadow effect

Some deserts have been formed due to the rain shadow effect caused by mountain chain

(to add more notes)

Desert landscapes

 Erg- large areas of dunes

 Hamada – bare rock
 Reg – stone covered deserts

Weathering processes in deserts

 Insolation weathering
 Salt weathering
 Chemical weathering

Evidence of climate change in deserts

Research, past and present has brought about concrete evidence which shows that the climate
characteristics of several areas have changed over a period of time.

It is not therefore, surprising to come across a number of landforms in desert areas whose
formation could not be attributed to present day climates but to past raining climate/fluvial
periods

Evidence in support of this

(1) Archaeological evidence in some deserts

Evidence has shown that hunting families once lived in deserts areas. The hunters were
looking after animals such as elephants, antelope and rhinos.

The people recorded their exploits in cave paintings at Tassili desert Ajjers

(2) Wadis

These are too large, deep and alluvial cones too widespread to have been formed by today’s
associated storms.

Sheet floods are too infrequent to have moved so much material over pediments

Ariel photographers and satellites have revealed many dry valleys which once must have had
permanent rivers.

(3) The shrinking of some inland water bodies eg lake Chad

Lacks were also once large and deeper. Around Lake Chad shorelines 50m above the present
level are visible.

Research suggested that Lake Levels might once have been over 100m large.

Lake Bonneville in the USA is only 1/10 of its maximum size.

Chad is drying up rapidly

(4) Pollen analysis

Pollen tests which indicated that forests once grew in some desert areas.

Oaka and Cedar forests may have grown some 10 000 years ago

(5) Ground water – ground water in the Nubian sandstone have been dated radio isotope
method to be over 25 000 years old
(6) Wind action

Desert sand storms are assured to have a powerful blasting effect particularly where the wind
is funnelled along depressions etched from joints or faults.
Wind action is certainly capable of polishing hard rocks and under undercutting weak rocks.
It is hardly likely to play a significant role in the formation of major landforms such as mesas
and inselbergs.

Most landforms in deserts due to wind action are impermeable they migrate from one place to
another.

The work of wind in deserts is mainly transportation and deposition but some landforms are
due to wind action

The major landforms formed by wind are:

(i) Deflation hollows (blow cuts)

(ii) Ordinary dunes
(iii) Seif dunes
(iv) Barchans
(v) Yardang
(vi) Zeugens

Deflation hollows

The key to the formation of deflation hollows is the presence of moisture in a depression. The
moisture includes some chemical weathering thus making the loose sand more amenable to
being blown away by prevailing wind.

When the weathered material is blown away the hollow is deepened and new unweathered
and heavier material remains. This in turn is decomposed and further deflation and deepening
of the hollow occurs.

As the hollow deepens, more moisture is made available and thus more decomposition hence
making the processes self-propelling.

With time the deepening continues until the water table is reached.

Water will then occupy the hollow and the subsequent evaporation creates a salt crust which
prevents further deflation.

Deflation hollows can be very extensive.

Formation of this feature is actually by chemical weathering

Diagram of deflation hollows

Aeolian Processes

The movement of particles is determined by several factors:

  Wind should be constant from one direction
 The nature of the Regolith
 Absence of vegetation
 Dry and small particles
 Wind movement is greatest where winds are strong (over 20km/hour)

Wind can move material by three processes

i) Suspension
ii) Saltation
iii) Surface creep

The effectiveness of each method is related to particle size

Suspension – where material is very fine ie less than 0,15mm in diameter. It can be picked
up by wind, raised up to considerable heights and carried great distances.

Red dust can be carried in deserts and deposited as red rain storm. Visibility in deserts is
sometimes reduced to less than 1000m and this is called the dust storm

Saltation – when wind speed exceeds the thresh hold velocity (the speed required to initiate
grain movement) fine and course grained sand particles are lifted.

They may rise almost vertically for several centimetres before returning to the ground in a
relatively flat trajectory of less than 12º as the wind continues to blow, the sand particles
bounce along leap and frogging over one another.

Even in the west storms, sand grains are rarely lifted higher than 2m above the ground

Surface creep – every time a sand particle transported by saltation it may dislodge and push
forward large particles more than 0,25mm in diameter which is too heavy to be uplifted. This
constant bombardment gradually moves small stones and pebbles over desert surface

Diagram of transportation processes

Erosion

There are to main processes of wind erosion which are deflation and abrasion

Deflation – is the progressive removal of fine material by the wind leaving pebble stream
desert pavements/reg. Deflation leads to the formation of deflation hollows (closed
depressions)

Abrasion – is a sand blasting action affected by material as they are moved by saltation. This
process smooth, polishes and wears away rock close to the ground.

Since sand particles cannot be lifted very high, the zone of maximum erosion tends to be
within 1m of the earth’s surface.
Abrasion produces a number of distinctive landforms which include yardangs, Vertifacts and
zeugens.

Vertifacts – are individual rock with sharp edges due to abrasion smooth sides.

Yardang - are extensive ridges of rock separated by grooves (through) with an alignment
similar to that of the prevailing winds

Diagram of yardang

Zeugen – are tabular masses of resistant rocks separated by trenches where the wind has cut
vertically through the cap into underlying softer rock

Diagram of zeugen

Wind depositional feature

These include ordinary dunes, barchans and seif dunes.

Dunes develop when sand grains moved by saltation and surface creep are deposited. These
are low sand ridges which are formed mainly in deserts and coastal areas

Factors for the formation of dunes

o The direction of the prevailing wind

o The amount and nature of the load the wind is transporting and depositing
o The nature of the land surface over which wind is blowing and the load is moving
o The presence of obstacle in the paths of wind and sand
o The presence of vegetation eg grass

The effects of water

Recent observations indicate that areas which are very arid (the interior of sahara ) the role of
water in moulding landforms at present is neglible but water related feature in these area
could be validly attributed to fluvial activities.

The main landforms formed by water action in deserts include Wadis, rock pavement, bajada
and alluvial fans.

Sporadic storms even if they are rare, generate geomorphological processes which leave a
marked imported on these landscapes.

The actual effect of the water action is determined by the relationship between the infiltration
rate and surface runoff.
Stream floods – floods caused by channelized streams in dissected upland areas in deserts.
They occur freak storm and their role is mainly transportation. They effectively cause lateral
corrosion leading to the formation of inselberg and wadis

Sheet floods – these cover a wide area. Unchannelised and cannot occur in dissected areas
but over rock pediments and alluvial fans.

Sheet floods are sometimes formed where stream floods emerging from the mouth of the
canyon.

Their role is mainly transportation as opposed to erosion.

Rivers in arid environment fall into three categories

(i) Exogenous - those which rise in mountains beyond desert margins. These rivers
continue to flow throughout the year even if their discharge is reduced by
evaporation when they cross the land eg Colorado, Nile, Indus, Tigris
(ii) Endogenic – where rivers terminate into inland lakes eg river Jordan, Bear
(iii) Ephemeral – flow intermittently or seasonally after rainstorm. They are short lived

Landforms

Alluvial fans (cone)

One of the major features produced by water action in desert and it is quite extensive (10m
radius – more than 20km)

Fans are formed when stream floods emerges from a confined valley or canyon.

When this happen the river and its loads spreads out and its energy is dissipated.

Boulders, gravel and sand are then deposited and thus form an alluvial fan. It is the sudden
changes of gradient which is chargely responsible of these fans

Diagram of alluvial fan

Bajada - When alluvial, coalesce they form a bajada. This feature has a gentle slope made up
of scree, gravel and course sand. Bajadas are formed in arid and semi-arid areas of inland
drainage and also along the foot of mountains

Wadis – another feature common in desert and semi-arid desert areas. It is steep sided and
has a generally flat floor.

Due to their depth, it is believed that wadis were formed during fluvial periods.

However, they are sometimes occupied by stream floods when freak storms occur in hot
desert.

Pediment – a feature which stretches from the foot of the mountain at slope of 2º or less.
Sometimes it is made up of bare rock surface hence the term rock pediment could be covered
by a thin veneer of detritus (debris)

The formation of pediment is rather controversial but most viewers seem to suggest that they
are formed either by slope retreat towards the mountain fronts or lateral planation by water
especially during freak storms.

Geomorphologists link the formation of pediments to sand blasting. Concave nature of most
pediments suggests that they could have been formed by the influence of running water.

Scarp retreat lead to the formation of pediments. Scarp retreat, deep weathering and
exhumation may also lead to the formation of pediments

Pediments could have been initiated under different climatic conditions but continue to
evolve even today

Playa – most could be seen in combination around a saline (salt) lake (playa). The size is not
fixed as it is always fluctuating due to rapid rates of evaporation.

Some of the water going into these basins comes from surrounding mountain areas

Diagram of playa fig 6.63 Munowenyu

Mesas and Buttes

These features are remains of denudation mainly by stream in arid and semi-arid areas. They
are flat and plateau shaped landform, capped by rocks which are resistant to erosion. The
mesa is more extensive than the butte which is much smaller

Diagram fig 7.24 D Waugh pg 187

Desert piedmont

Are localities which separate mountains, plateaus and residual uplands masses from the broad
plains of erosion and deposition which are marginal to them.

They are characterised by various features whose formation cannot be entirely described to
the currents action of carbon dioxide and winds but did also a result of past pluvial era

Fig 6.3 mutodi page 195

The characteristic features of the desert piedmont

1.mountain front –this is a border controlled scarp of a mountain which is generally

steep ranging between 35 -90 degrees .it is described to tectonic movements such as
faulting followed subsequence weathering and stripping of the weathered materials on
the face of a slope.
It can be dissected by storms which may either dry or containing some water.
It can be associated with pediplanation scarp retreat.
Often the mountain front to occupied by borders which can be disintegrated
Causing a receding process which is associated with pediplanation

2. knik point

This is a point of break from the mountain front to the rock pediment

It can be referred to as pediment angle which makes a critical sharp transition between the
pediment and back scarp which is the mountain front.

In the arid areas transition funds to be more abrupt than in the humid areas.

The knick is usually covered by debris eroded from the mountain front

3.alluvial fans

4.pedment

5.peri-pediment

6.playa

Abuse and sustainable management of arid and semi-arid environment

Arid and semi- arid of the world are naturally fragile due to

1. high temperature

2. low rainfall totals

3. high rates of evaporation

4. The existence of thin dry soils

5. Very low biomass and bio diversity

6. A small animal components.

Disturbance by anthropogenic or human activities leads to massive deterioration of the

environment.

Future generations may not enjoy the legacy current one are abusing.

These human activities include mining, animal husbandry, nomadic cattle , sheep , camel and
goat ranching , dry land , cultivation, irrigation ,tourism, commercialism of wood fuel sources
testing of nuclear weapon, motor rallies – like in any other ecosystem semi- arid areas
encounter decision making problems of economic developments vs environmental
protection.

The meaning of the word sustainable

1.to support
2.to keep going or mountain

3. to uphold as valid

1. Mining

Is one of majority activities by which many has abused arid and semi and environments

Bellow dust sand, hundreds of barrier of crude oil and natural gas has been discovered and
are being mining annually.

Ghama in Saudi-Arabia and Bhugan in Kuwait are the largest and second largest oil field in
the world respectively.

Other dust countries such as United Arab Emirates, Iran , Iraq, Hemen, Abodab and Libya
also extract and refine and export amounts of crude oil.

The abuse of the environment from oil mining has manifest in a number of ways.

At the oil field gas has been tradionally burnt as it was considered to be of little or no
commercial value.

The environment has suffered from the burning of this hydrocarbon in the form of air
pollution by greenhouse gases released in the process.

Oil leaks at the well along transporting pipelines have soiled magnificent sand dunes which
harbour their ecosystem; destroying desert fauna and flora in the process eg the huge oil
refineries at Ras Tamura in Saudi Arabia and Ming-al-Almadi in Kuiwait are polluting the
environment through leakages despite the massive oil engineering.

A middle East is politically volatile and the Trans Arabian pipeline has occasionally been
blown up , spoiling the environment.

The growth of urban centres.

Urbanisation

The growth of urban centres in desert areas eg Dubai the problems are massive urbanisation
which result in water pollution , destruction of the natural and its replacement with concrete ,
steel and glass building and tarred roads and the creation of urban heats islands.

Industrialism accelerates climate change

Measures to reduce the problems

Commercialisation of natural gas so that its economic value is now realised instead of
wastefully burning it.

Engineers from Advanced countries are hived with their knowledge environmental
protection.
Gulf estates are now signatories to international convections concerned with environment.
Their urban centres have adopted the Japanese concept of planting vegetation on rooftops,
balconies and indoors which will clean the air and act as sink to industrial and urban air
polluting gases.

Environmental management agencies have been set up and these have put in place laws for
oil-making companies which pollute the environment eg The Polluter Pay Principle.

These agencies also educate the public, government and oil mining companies how best to
protect the environment.

Botswana mines a lot of diamonds in Ghanzi and other districts of the Kalahari Desert using
the open cast method. Huge pits have been dug and blasting is done along the diamond pipes.

Open cast methods clear the little Kalahari Desert vegetation resulting in lower vegetation
cover.

Blasting loosens already weak soils, accelerating erosion by flash during the rainy season.
Abandoned pits leave permanent scars on the beautiful desert landscape.

Measures

Fill up and revegetate the surface, the scars will disappear.

Tough penalties are being imposed in Botswana and Namibia on companies

Animal Farming

Animal farming has had great effect on the environment both commercial and traditional
nomadic herding angle.

The sahel region from Mauritania to Ethopia on the Southen edge of Sahara desert has been
affected by herds of cattle sheep and camels.

Herds of sheep, cattle and camels have increased in size among the nomads such as the
Fulani, the Masai Tauregs. This is due to:

 Eradication of tsetse flies

 Improvements in modern animal vaccinations
 Traditional beliefs that large herds are symbol of wealth

Commercial ranches have also come in buying cattle and other livestock from nomads and
creating huge ranches on which they rear the animals

Some of the largest ranches in the world are found in the Australian Desert where sheep
farming takes place.
Overstocking and overgrazing are a result of animal farming. The carrying capacity of the
already fragile environment is surpassed. The little vegetation available is destroyed leading
to the acceleration of erosion.

Commercialisation of wood fuel has worsened the situation also promoting environmental
degradation as trees are cut and sold.

It is estimated that Sahara desert is advancing into the Sahel at the rate of 11 million hectares
per year.

The Sahel also extending into the savanna grasslands at an alarming rate.

In Australia, the sheep reared are watered from artesian wells. This has resulted from over
pumping of ground water which lowers the water table. The water has been collected many
years ago.

Lowering the water table by just one metre will require 5 years to replenish this gap yet
rainfall in deserts is low and erratic.

Traditional migration routes of nomads have led to the development of bed load topography
where the paths have turned into gullies, desertification is the result.

Measures

(i) Destocking – the number of livestock is deliberately reduced by either selling or

slaughtering so that the carrying capacity is met and environmental destruction is
checked
(ii) Degraded marginal lands are rehabilitated in a number of ways including fencing
for the ground to recover its vegetation
(iii) Revegetation is being undertaken in the Sahel successful as soil is anchored by
grass and tree roots thereby preventing soil erosion
(iv) The United nations has devised a model to sedentarise nomads around wells.
Homes about 20 around a single well become permanent. Villagers graze their
livestock towards the well during winter when natural pastures are scarce and then
away from the well in summer when natural pastures are plentiful
(v) Legislation has been passed to heavily fine those who exceed the carrying
capacity of the ecosystem. Rational grazing (paddocking) has been successfully
applied by the Botswana meat company (BMC) on its ranches surrounding
Lobatse. Grass is given sufficient time to recover in one group of paddock.

Perception on environment degradation varies from one group to another eg Masai of Kenya
do not heed government calls to destock. They consider it right to own as many cattle as
possible

(vi) Massive education have launched in the Sahel with varying degrees of success.
The range lands in Australia and USA showed marked improvement
Dry Land Cultivation

In Africa’s marginal lands, dry land crop-cultivation has been practised with the view to
increase food supply to the ever increasing rural population

Cereals such as millets and sorghum are extensively grown in Mali, Mauritania, Chad, Niger,
Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.

Good croplands in these countries are already in use and extension of farmlands has been into
the arid and semi-arid areas with their fragile soils.

The result has been negatively affecting the soil structures, loosening them through increased
tilling and making them vulnerable to wind and water erosion.

The best measure is to leave these areas alone and not practise any dry land cultivation on
them at all while concentrating this activity on productive land elsewhere in these countries

Irrigation

From the 1950s – 1970s in the heydays of green revolution irrigation farming was extended
into arid and semi-arid areas of the world.

30 million hectares were brought into production in Pakistan’s desert on the Indus plain.

Egypt build the huge Aswan on the Nile river to control flooding of lower causes of this river
and irrigate large tracts of land in the Sahara desert.
The Orner scheme in the Middle Niger River was embarked upon Nigeria

The USA harnessed water on the Colorado river diverting it to irrigate the desert lands in
California.

Short-term increase food production has been realised but long term environmental disasters
are now being experienced

The high the temperature and evaporation rate, salination has been the end result where salts
are brought to the surface or subsurface by capillary action.

Naturally, the solonetz and solonchak salts are salty but immigration worsens the situation.

Flood immigration has largely been responsible for this where too much water applied has
drawn up lots of salts from underground

Solution

To counter this problem, the Israel in their Kibbutzim in the Negev desert has devised very
successful drip irrigation method which does not apply too much water on the crops. Drops
water into plant roots slowly but this prevents much capillary action and therefore reduces
salinization of the soils

Tourism
Has been one of way by which environment in the arid and semi-arid areas has been abused .

These areas pass spectacular features and landforms in the form of messas and buttes,
mushroom rocks and pedestals, wadis and canyons which attract nature lovers in droves.

Mass tourism has seen the Grand Canyon on the Colorado river in USA attract 16 million
tourists per annum.

The Rishi river Canyon in Namibia also attracts large number of tourists naturally just to
view the splendour of earth sculpture

Such attractive features have led to the now infamous mass tourism. The active or effects of
tourism have been damaging in a number of ways.

Tourists just walk around the features, photography them, eat and drink out at the sites, go for
a drive or picnic, cycle/biking or just climb features. The sites and paths are damaged
severely.

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Measure

The USA has taken the lead in developing migration guidelines for its tourism resorts, among
them the Great Canyon, Their planning and management geared towards what has come to be
called exon- tourism. This act of tourism that does not impact negatively on the environment
but is friendly to sustainable. There is effective planning and conservation legislation to
control the behaviour of visitors. They guide the amount of public and private sector
investments into tourism.

Educating the tourists is undertaken with all the don’ts and dos in a park. System has been
advised and at times canyon is art of sounds.

They is rigid on going assessment, evaluation and monitoring of tourist impact on the
environment with the view of maintaining the canyon in its pristine states

Sand Dune formation

Mobile sand dunes and sandstones are a cause for concern in arid and semi-arid areas. They
bury settlements as in Northern Chad while sandstone has either killed travellers or local
residents or just but a nuisance to experience.

Countries with plenty of oil have used this resource to stabilise dunes by pouring the oil over
the dunes.

Sand dunes might look lifeless but they have their own vibrant ecosystems in the form of
burrowing reptiles (snakes and lizards) aunts, scorpions, beetles and xerophytes vegetation
which survives under harsh desert conditions

Rare birds live and nest in these near inhospitable environment.

This method of dune fixation has hard calamitous effects as all these creatures and vegetation
perish.

Measures

Better environmentally friendly fixing method has now replaced this technique. These
include:

(i) Watering the dunes as the sandy seas (erg) when strong winds are approaching. Wet
sand is heavy and cannot be moved by wind
(ii) Drought resistant plants and grasses have successfully stabilised dunes in Mali and
Northern Burkina Faso

As the plants grow, they become a source of wood fuel but as they are harvested,
they are replaced by younger ones

This way, the plants acts as wind break an anchor to soils and provider of much
scarce energy resource.

Nuclear Weapons and Toxic Wastes

Hot deserts have been favourites sites for the testing of nuclear weapons as well as disposal
of toxic wastes due to the fact since hot desert are hot and almost lifeless ie energy generated
by nuclear tests will naturally blend with the environmental heat causing little damage to the
environment.

The USA tests its nuclear arsenal in the Mohave Desert. Israel does it in the Negev. Iran and
Iraq tested their biological weapons in the desert. Pakistan has done the same in the Thar
Desert. This has proved to be fallacious thinking as environmentalists have exposed the level
of destruction of these activities.

Motor Rallies

The Paris-Dakar rally from France to Senegal held annually has seen many motor vehicles
and motor cycles cross the Sahara desert, the pleasure and success of the rally being the
ability to withstand the vagaries of nature and finish the race.

Vehicles have burnt down and are abandoned on the desert dunes.

Ugly tyre marks are left on the desert surface and the noise disturbs the desert peace.

Pollution of air and land has been the result.

Because of resistance by Sahara desert nomad and political instability if the countries passed
through this rally has now shifted to Atacama Desert of South America which replicates
conditions similar to those of Sahara. However, the consequences have been the same on the
environment
Suggestion

One environmentalist has actually suggested that, the best way of managing arid and semi-
arid environments is to leave them alone after witnessing the damage caused by these rallies

Desertification

It is the transformation of productive land into non-productive land.

The process of desertification is characterised by increase in temperature coupled with low

rainfall leading to destruction of vegetation cover, exposing of the soil to agents of erosion.

Factors Influencing Desertification

Natural Causes

(i) Climate Change - Increase global temperatures accompanied by low levels of

evaporation rates from reduced water bodies and forests have resulted in
progressive drying out of the savanna areas (semi-arid) which naturally bound
desert margins. This increased aridity means extension of desert margins to
incorporate savanna lands
(ii) Highly Unreliable & Seasonal Rainfall - Occur in the semi-arid (savanna)
regions and desert marginal globally. This gas increased dryness of these areas
leading to extensions of desert margins. The conditions lead to reduced soil
moisture and evaporation related biomass a vicious cycle of related desertification
(iii) Reduced Rainfall - These periodic droughts have greatly reduced vegetation and
water tables leading to reduced rainfall
(iv) Fragile Sandy Soils - Agricultural marginal soil which are vulnerable to wind and
water action will be eroded by erosion. Reduced biomass naturally leads to rapid
erosion resulting in diminishing infiltration rates and lower tables. Desertification
sets in due to reduced evapotranspiration and severe aridity
(v) Elnino Effects

(to add notes)

Human Causes

The following human causes accelerated and in some instances initiate desertification

(i) Rapid population growth – The population pressure has meant massive
deforestation to open lands for settlement, fuel, grazing and cultivation leading to
interfered hydrological cycle eg leads to the extension of desert margins
 (ii) Overgrazing – due to reduced pasture by increased population has exposed
marginal sand soils to rapid wind and gully erosion, reducing such areas prone to
crop failure, famine and extension of desert lands
(iii) Man-induced droughts – it is caused by deforestation and the destruction of the
ozone layer particularly caused by increased carbon dioxide emission into the
atmosphere due to carbonisation, have particularly caused reduced annual rainfall
and increased aridity in the sand
(iv) Areas of sand and grass lands –

Attempts to reduce desertification

CAUSES MEASURES EVALUATIONS

Population growth placing Population education to rural Zimbabwe family planning
pressure on land resources populations. programmes and campaigns
Availability, affordable and highly successful in urban
contraceptives centres
Practising good agro-
ecological methods eg zero
tillage on fragile sand soil
Overgrazing Paddocking-destocking Commercial ranching in
Culling of giant herbivores Zimbabwe
like elephants
Resettlement
Deforestation Afforestation in form of Zimbabwe national planting
wood forestry day on the first of December
Re-introduction of grasslands involving schools and
communities.
Gully erosion Gully reclamation Growing of guava trees
Afforestation Resettlement
Regrassing
Legislation
Marginal sandy soils Lining Adding of fertilisers has led
Adding humus and manure to to salinization
improve water holding
capacity
Soil erosion Terracing on slopes Success in the Eastern
Forestry on slopes highlands
Afforestation Extension workers
Resettlement
Education on soil
conservation methods
Destruction of the ozone Anti-pollution laws and Measure have been
layer. campaigning introduced with limited
Carbon tax success
Ozone friendly aerosols
Pollution free fuel substitutes
eg H.E.P
Adaptations of plants and animals to desert conditions

Deserts have a reputation for supporting very little life but in reality deserts often have bio-
diversity including animals

Adaptation of animals

 Animals remain hidden during daylight hours to control body temperature or to limit
moisture needs eg the kangaroo, jack raping, coyote and different kinds of lizards. All
these type of animals which hide during the daylight in deserts are called exerocetes.
 Desert animals have got a way of preventing water from leaving their bodies eg
kangaroos, rats and lizards they live in burrows which do not get too hot or too cold.
The burrows have more humid air inside
 Other animals have bodies designed to save water eg the spiders, camels and
scorpions have a thicker outer covering which reduces moisture loss
 The kidneys of most desert animals concentrate urine so that these animals excrete
lees water

Adaptation of plants

 Some plants (succulents) store water in their plant leaves, roots and stem eg the
prickly pear.
 Others have long tap roots that penetrates to the water table eg cactus
 They have small leaves which shed less moisture as compared to the decidicious
leaves which have greater surface areas eg cactus
 Some plants have got leaves with hair like features which help the plant to reduce
water loss
 Some leaves turn throughout the day to expose a minimum surface area to heat eg
prickly pear
 Some plants have spine to discourage animals from eating plants
 Some plants have wax coating on their stems and leaves to reduce water loss
 Some plants grow very slowly hence it means that less energy is required. The plant
does not have too much food therefore, it means that less water is lost

Effects of desert environments to humans

 Sweating
 Dehydration
 Heat strokes
 Sun burns

Morden technology is making deserts habitable

 Irrigation
 Desalinisation programmes
 Air-conditioning.