Being Godless Wastelands Are Wrong

In an arid land, there is less precipitation than the potential evaporation which is not the case in humid regions.

The first biome I would like to talk about is the grassland biome. There are two kinds of grassland biomes; tropic and temperate grasslands. West Virginia is part of the temperate grassland. Sometimes, the temperature can reach up to 100 degrees. In the winter, the temperatures are very cold. Grassland biomes receive between 10 to 30 inches of rain.

Now, humans have a steady food supply so they do not have to move about. Therefore, people use fences to keep their animals in one place, which causes overgrazing. Today we see many subjects being affected by desertification. Ute Schaeffer reports the affects of desertification in, Down to Earth: News & Views on Desertification,“(doc.3) It has presented a challenge for governments and aid agencies in over 110 countries for some time, and is a contributing factor in poverty and regional conflicts, for example in Sudan. It has also been a major issue in Egypt, where 90% of the country’s land mass is desert. Faced with a rising population, the government has had to undertake a number of settlement and irrigation projects to create additional living and working space.” Necessary changes were made in order to adapt to the conditions of the desert and the obstacles that have to be faced. It is always presumed that there are only negative aspects to deserts but this isn’t always the case. There is a side to the Sahara desert that acts as a home to several living organisms. The Sahara has vegetation and access to water, which allows life to exist in this region. The Nile Valley, for example, is an area that is still quite full of foliage, trees and other growing things. This area is an exception, because of the way it is fed by the Nile River. Another area of the Sahara that has some vegetation to it is in the North, along the Mediterranean where olive trees grow

The Chihuahuan desert is large area of the northern Mexico and runs into the southern part of the United Stated which include west Texas. The region of the desert has a high altitude of 1000 to 1500 meters which fall to about 350 meters along the Rio Grande River. Summers are very hot and the winter are somewhat cool, which some night frosts. Rainfall in this area is about 20-30 cm which mostly happens during the summer time. In most of the Chihuahuan Desert most of it has calcareous soil that are derived from the limestone beds. The Chihuahuan Desert has many types of vegetation such as Yucca, such as Torrey yucca or the banana yucca, they are very difficult in telling them apart because of hybridization, because they are

Desertification typically occurs as a result of poor management by human populations. In earlier times of history, desertification was not seen as a widespread issue, because most humans led hunter-gatherer lifestyles that caused them to frequently relocate. Thus, the land was not populated for enough time for it to become overgrazed by livestock or depleted of nutrients by over-farming and deforestation. However, in more recent history, desertification has become much more significant as agriculture-based societies became more widespread and the need to produce as much as many goods as possible overrode the need to conserve Earth’s

This causes the desertification and it also slows down progress for finding areas that can be medicine for certain diseases. Grasslands act as a big sponge, as they are able to absorb the rain that falls throughout the grassland. Because of this, there's fertile land, and abundance of nutrients for migrating wildlife. In south Africa, companies have put non-native trees in the grassland which is taking away nutrients from the area. In the Florida Everglades, they're only about 80 Florida Panthers left. The big problem that I notice is that we are able to make plenty of land for agriculture but not for people. In only three years, farmers in Zambia have created food security for 16,000 farmers. Glaciers are melting all run the world, however the speed of this has went up three times as much in the last 50

Much of northwest Mexico—including Baja California and the northern regions of the Pacific Coast lowlands—is quite arid, receiving less than 130 mm (5 in) of rain per year. The northern Gulf Coast plains are semiarid, receiving about 250 to 560 mm (about 10 to 22 in) of rainfall annually. As on the central plateau, rainfall increases toward the south on both the western and eastern coasts.

The concept of a Food Desert is not new, “British politicians introduced the idea of food deserts in the mid-1990s… suggested a link might exist between distance to a grocery store and the diets of poor people” (Gilligan, 2014). It took many years before the idea of a Food Desert was recognized in the United States of America but it is now estimated that, “About 23.5 million people live in food deserts” ("11 Facts About Food Deserts | DoSomething.org | Volunteer for Social Change," n.d.). The inability to obtain healthy food choices leads to, “people in low-income communities [suffering] more from diet-related diseases like obesity and diabetes” (Truehaft & Karpyn, 5, n.d.). The existence of these Food Deserts is a factor that works to keep those in poverty down and makes progress even harder for them to

Coal in the United States has long been the #1 producer of energy. Massive seams of coal are found in the Appalachian Mountains, and our reliance on this fossil fuel has meant devastation for many mountain residents and over 500 mountains. As our society advances, the need for more energy advances. What were once beautiful rolling hills are now flattened plateaus reminiscent of a landscape you would see in the desert. We as a nation have only short-term interest in our environment, and choose to ignore the many warning signs this planet continues to offer us. Left in our path of destruction are the many residents of Appalachia and a landscape that begs us for forgiveness.

Deserts— typically known as very hot, dry places, such as the Sahara Desert in Africa. However, there is a different type of desert that is found all over the United States, and people reside in them every day. These deserts can be cold, hot, rainy, or dry, as they are not identified based on climate and nature. Instead of lacking rainfall and vegetation, as normal deserts do, they lack something else— access to healthy foods. These deserts are known as food deserts, where residents do not have easy access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and other wholesome foods.

As lack of water and a particularly dry climate out competes shrubs, trees, and grasslands across Colorado, erosion rates increase reducing the infiltration of moisture into the soil. Causation is believed to have come from heavy livestock grazing, fire suppression, and the introduction of exotic annual plants. Habitat problems for animals and communities that rely on ranching and hunting have been directly affected by these desertification effects. Desertification has had large ecological impacts on the state of Colorado. Vegetation and ecosystems are among the most crucially impacted by the effects of desertification. While Colorado continues its dry drought like climate, restoration of soil becomes one of the major solutions to fight off desertification. Because of the overuse of our land in past generations, we are continuing to see the harmful effects due to desertification. The overall impact on humans produced by desertification is best noticed by a diminishing food production as well as a wealth of water sources becoming dry. People in affected areas are likely to experience poor water quality, dust storms, and pollution. More importantly, as soil loses its nutrients, it no longer becomes farmable; thus, impacting local businesses, livestock, and the many people in that community. If desertification continues in Colorado, an increase of lost farmlands and livestock will pose an economic decease within agriculture markets, farmers will be forced to move to find better

A biome can be best described as a group of flora and fauna in a specified habitat that live together and occur naturally. Meanwhile, a chaparral, which roots from the Spanish word chaparro (meaning scrub oak), is a community of plants that mainly consist of dense trees and shrubs that have adapted to the Mediterranean climate. This climate is an essential characteristic of this biome. Another essential characteristic of this biome is its susceptibility to droughts and wildfires. This is caused by the lack of rainfall it receives per year. For comparison’s sake, the average yearly amount of rainfall the contiguous United States receives is 30.21 inches (or 767 millimeters) while chaparral biomes receive a mere 10 to 15 inches of rainfall a year. Wildfires are a major aspect to the chaparral cycle because they clear the land of dead vegetation in order to make room for new

The ecosystem is a dry desert that covers four states California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah and is know as the smallest

The term desert is strongly connected to the image of an extremely harsh environment void of any life. The sand dunes at the Gulf of California would fit this description of a desert biome, but for large parts the Sonoran Desert has a stunning array of different organisms.

Natural causes leading to dissertation have been ongoing for the last few thousand years. That is to say, since the start of the world. As Brady, Nyle C., and Ray R. Weil. state in their book Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils “Water deficiency is a major characteristic of these (arid) soils.” Soils without consistent water and the ability to store water require excessive care. Other natural causes are wild animal overpopulation or underpopulation, bare land, forest fires and natural disasters. While these many causes may seem overwhelming to correct there is much hope for arid lands.