The World 's Largest Hot Dry Land Desert

When looking at Niger’s spatial distribution, many of the causes of the nation's water issues can be examined and made obvious. Niger has a geographical disadvantage, being landlocked by the countries Chad, Berkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Libya and Algeria. Eighty per cent of Niger is occupied by the Sahara desert, the largest hot desert in the world, renowned for its hot climate and lack of precipitation. According to statistics, Niger receives an average of 7 inches (17.78 cm) of rainfall a year, most of which comes in the months of July and August. Niger is in close proximity the equator, which leads to extremely sultry temperatures, averaging 29 degrees during the dry season and 40 degrees during the humid season. Compared to the climate of the neighbouring nations of Morocco and Algeria, the climate of Niger is extreme. However, Niger has a huge supply of water far underground, about three billion cubic metres of drinking. These factors of Niger’s spatial distribution, from terrain to climate, contribute to the water scarcity.

Today, there is less than half of Australian’s arid zone environment used for farming. Majority of the farming in the arid zone of Australia is for either sheep or cattle, with only a few small, irrigated crops scatted throughout the area (Kaul 1971). As a result, this report will focus on other countries such as North, South and Central America, Africa and Asia (Creswell & Martin 1998). (Please note, Asia’s arid zones are known as a ‘dry zones’, but for this report the generally term ‘arid zone’ will be used).

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

However, many of the worlds irrigation systems are found in arid, semi arid environments, which climate change will alter significantly in the future (J. D, Connor, Schwabe, K. King, D. Knapp, K. 2011). Nearly one third of the worlds Nearly one-third of the irrigated land worldwide are affected by salinization (Schwabe et al., 2011e).

This study has found that global annual temperature has been increasing more rapidly than in centuries past. As the temperature rise the evaporation levels rise as well and the amount of precipitation the atmosphere can hold rises. A 1% per year of increasing CO2 concentrations increased temperatures that caused a higher rate of evaporation accumulating in more droughts. (Sheffield & Wood, 2007,

Desertification is the change of land once suitable for agriculture into a desert. This progression changes arable land into a desert unequipped for the growth of crops and farming practices. Dry land affects millions of people lives because the land becomes unsuitable for agriculture so the people cannot grow crops, therefore, they cannot feed them self or their livestock. Which leaves the people without food. Desertification also causes problems in the food chain. Three main causes of desertification are drought, deforestation, and Overgrazing

The deserts, rainforests and lack of rivers and lakes throughout Africa make practicing sustainable agriculture very difficult for many people. The land is dry and arid so most plants do not grow very well and cannot survive in most of the continent. In addition to this, most of the rivers on this continent are in sub-Saharan Africa therefore impeding irrigation in northern Africa. People living in countries in northern Africa must trade to obtain food for survival. The deserts and savannas spread throughout Africa hinder the growth of agriculture in multiple regions around the

A.The Sahara Desert is the world‘s extremely hot climate areas. Also the Sahara Desert is the harshest climate. To my knowledge The Sahara Desert gets less than 10 percent each year 10 percent of rainfall each year in the sahara desert and the rainfall and the water doesn’t stay very long in the summertime because it drys up and evaporation. In The summer, the Sahara Desert’s temperature gets around 136 degrees fahrenheit, the temperature might drop depending on the day could drop down 40 degrees fahrenheit during the evening time. Well I believe that the Sahara Desert is at mid-latitude area, because around the mid-latitude area it is very hot and steamy in the Sahara Desert. Well the amount of rainfall will be evaporated from how hot the desert is.

The Saharan region is located in the northern part of West Africa and was mainly formed by the Saharan Desert. This region posses a variety of distinct landscapes being sandy sheets, dune fields, gravel plains, low plateaus and vast mountain ranges. The average rainfall ranges from 0 mm to about 150 mm per year. Due to the lack of rainfall vegetation is nearly scarce or absent. The vast mountain ranges specifically consists of Aïr Mountains located within the Sahara Desert of Central Niger. The Aïr Mountains extend over an area of 72,00 sq km, about the size of Sierra Leone, giving West Africa some of the most beautiful scenery. (Shown in Figure 2)

These freshwater lakes covered about 10% of the Sahara and were three times bigger than the Great Lakes. Scientists wanted to find the answer as to what caused the Sahara to go from grassland to desert. They discovered that the wobble of the earth’s orbit every 20 thousand years was the cause of the changing environment which moved the rain belt. Scientists used ocean sediment to determine that the change of landscape can happen within one or two centuries. I found this fascinating that the earth’s slight wobble could affect the landscape that much. This made me wonder what other changes might happen due to the Earth’s wobble. If the Sahara’s climate changed this much could other locations have similar changes in the next thousands of years. Even though the landscape change in the Sahara only happens every 20 thousands of years can scientist predict approximately when the next change will occur? Also, because scientists discovered that the change of landscapes can happen within a few hundred is it possible that some future generations may witness that changes of the Sahara landscape. It is very shocking to think about the fact that in the next few thousand years the biggest desert in the world might be a grassland. By observing how the Earth changes over time it can predict future changes in the landscape and

Climate is inherently variable. Climate changes from place to place and it varies with time. The world now faces one of the complex and important issue it has ever had to deal with: climate change. Climate change today is one of the biggest concerns of human beings on the planet and the effects of climate change are undeniable and it may cause environmental, social, and economic threats to the planet. We already know and easily can highlight several signs of climate change. They are: rising global sea level, widespread melting of snow and ice, rapidly changing ocean and global temperatures, and other signs. So, what are the causes of climate change? Is it natural or do human beings cause it? Well, in both cases we would be right. The climate change can be affected by natural factors, such as solar output, volcanic eruptions, and the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Also, climate change can be affected by human activities such as, deforestation, burning fossil fuels, causing ozone hole, and building mass destructive weapons and using them on earth that causes a huge radioactivity on earth. Currently, the threat of global climate change does not threaten some nations to the extent of others. Compare the United States with the rest of African countries. We live in prosperity and in much easier time than the rest African countries. Most African countries cannot grow anything on their lands because of climate change. At the end, climate change might affect everyone on

Climate: Africa contains both the world’s largest desert (the Sahara) and the world 's longest river (the Nile).Temperatures are highest in desert areas, particularly the Sahara. They are cooler across the south and in mountainous areas and plateau highlands. Rainfall varies dramatically across Africa.Changing weather patterns, however patterns of weather are changing, both locally and across the continent. The Sahara is the world 's largest low-latitude hot desert. The area is located in the horse latitudes under the subtropical ridge, a significant belt of semi-permanent subtropical, warm-core high pressure where the air from the upper levels of the troposphere tends to sink towards the ground. This steady descending airflow causes a warming and a drying effect in the upper troposphere. The sinking air prevents evaporating water from rising and, therefore, prevents the adiabatic cooling, which makes cloud formation extremely difficult to nearly impossible.

The Sahel 's climate is mainly affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The zone at at the thermal equator is where the trade winds meet. The low pressure belts then and migrates with the changing position of the thermal equator. Because of this there is a huge lack of rainfall, in place like Gao, Mali the rainfall is just 200 mm per year! With the air mass and lack of rain (pattern is very irregular from season to season) will continue to cause desertification of Sahel and

Drying of marginal soils due to overgrazing and other intensive land use on semi-arid soils leads to a net loss of soil water storage, reduced evaporation, and increased storm runoff. This has potentially long-term consequences for the sustainability of local agriculture and hence the associated water balance.

Desertification is a term few people recognize and even fewer are concerned about. This paper will cover what desertification is along with why it is a global crisis, what the root causes of desertification are, what can be done to reverse the harm full desertification process, it will also cover how farmers can work together to prevent future desertification.