IMF Members' Quotas and Voting Power, and Board of Governors, IMF Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, IMF Capacity Development Office in Thailand (CDOT), IMF Regional Office in Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic, High-Level Summary Technical Assistance Reports, Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves, Latest Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa. These drylands account for more than 40 percent of the world's terrestrial surface area. This makes the desert an important place for mineral resources and for local and global economy. Yjc4MzM3MzUwZGViMGU3NGExYTc5Y2I5MzA5ZGI1MWJiMmY3ZGVjMjRhOTU5 They have received less attention than their hotter or semi-arid counterparts. Furthermore, what precipitation a desert does experience is erratic. The principal topographical features of the Sahara include shallow, seasonally inundated basins (chotts and dayas) and large oasis depressions; extensive gravel-covered plains (serirs or regs); rock-strewn plateaus (hammadas); abrupt mountains; and sand sheets, dunes, and sand seas (ergs). On current forecasts, per capita GDP in many countries is not expected to This is certainly the case with the northern end of the Chihuahua Desert where efforts to re-introduce bison along the US-Mexico border has met with hostility. They have sometimes suffered horrifically at the hands of national governments while some Arab people perceive the Bedouin as pure or romantic much in the same way that other countries romanticize other lost traditions such as the Roma travelers of Eastern Europe or the Amazonian lost tribes who have only had limited contact with the outside world. AAAS is a partner of HINARI, AGORA, OARE, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, CrossRef and COUNTER. The US deserts are also home to copper. This could double or triple if We discussed the problem with irrigation in Mesopotamia in the archaeology section where increased salt deposits made agriculture more difficult. Sand sheets and dunes cover approximately 25 percent of the Saharas surface. Please make a tax-deductible gift today. As a result, the gap between sub-Saharan Africas growth and the rest of Even when safety is observed 100% and in sites where there has never been such an ecological disaster, the infrastructure of the mine can create problems. It's amongst the purest deserts in the world. Roots of such plants bind soil together; it's critical at the best of times but when it comes to marginal landscapes (areas prone to flooding, drought, mineral leaching and subject to even minor fluctuations in weather patterns) the situation is even more precarious and more care needs to be taken to prevent desertification. If this is true, then it is far older than the Namib which has a confirmed 43-million-year history. The region, despite having lush valleys around and between the rivers, had much lower precipitation than Egypt which relied on annual Nile flooding (18). Desertification has been described as "the greatest environmental challenge of our time" and climate change is making it worse. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Long-term elevated CO2 levels could give exotic species a boost, Smith says, and extra plant matter means more fuel for fires. Your access to this site was blocked by Wordfence, a security provider, who protects sites from malicious activity. UNESCO now has a chairperson dedicated to Eremology, such is the importance of the preservation of the desert biome for cultural and ecological reasons; as discussed previously, various peoples have lived in deserts for millennia and it remains an important part. 86 percent of big animals in the Sahara Desert are extinct or endangered by Jeremy Hance on 3 December 2013 Bigger than all of Brazil, among the harshest ecosystems on Earth, and largely undeveloped, one would expect that the Sahara desert would be a haven for desert wildlife. (photo: heinstirred by Getty Images), By Abebe Aemro Selassie and Shushanik Hakobyan. Create your own unique website with customizable templates. A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. As far as non-metal resources are concerned, deserts are also home to clay, beryllium, pumice (where there was past volcanic activity), nitrates and lithium. Sand dunes show the increasing desertification of the Tibetan Plateau, as land dries out and vegetation cover vanishes due to human activity. While interpretations of the term desertification vary, the concern centers on human-caused land degradation in areas with low or variable rainfall known as drylands: arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid lands. Private sector balance sheets were also hit hard by the pandemic. However, they are abundant with both flora and fauna. A Silicon Valley firm wants to flood deserts to help solve global warming. Our latest For most land grazing animals like the gazelle, Barary sheep, Oryx and some birds, this means it is a struggle for them to find food and survive. sub-Saharan African countries to help boost liquidity and fight the It's an interesting area of study that shows both human ingenuity and human potential for self-destruction. Its precipitation is so negligible that it's considered virtually zero. Other noteworthy formations include the Ennedi Plateau of Chad, the Ar Massif of Niger, the Iforas Massif of Mali, and the outcroppings of the Mauritanian Adrar region. This especially means the temperatures. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Oil is not unique to dry environments though and the most important process is the presence of organic material and the right chemical conditions. Many are not aware that deserts are a net carbon sink, providing some relief from the increase in greenhouse gases. Deserts, despite a reputation in some quarters as a barren and useless wasteland or as problems to be solved, have been a way of life for many different peoples. The name Sahara derives from the Arabic noun ar, meaning desert, and its plural, ar. If we want to solve climate, why not bet on the easy stuff?. This is the desert on which Las Vegas is located, bordered by the Great Basin Desert and the Tehachapi Mountains. The great wealth of plant and animal life in desert areas are also an important . The discovery was made when researching bacteria in the desert. New AI may pass the famed Turing test. Perhaps their most notable characteristic is their ears, which can grow to between 4 to 6 inches (10.2 to 15.2 centimeters) in length. Another recent study found that the same level of warming would result in "aridification," or drying out, of up to 30 percent of Earth's land surface. Weathering and wind bring up ancient landscapes. Today, researchers into the desert biome understand the importance of their conservation for these reasons, but also for biodiversity (15) and the unique biological makeup of such landscapes. Deserts can be vast, desolate landscapes where nothing exists for hundreds of miles around. Far from being a good thing, it puts the biome at risk, changing it from a desert into something else. risks falling further behind as the global economy rebounds. Other major threats to deserts include overgrazing, woody-vegetation clearance, agricultural expansion, water diversion and extraction, soil and water pollution, land con- version due to industrial activities and associated threats from armed conflicts [19,21]. Human Development Human habitats represent another major threat to desert areas. For an encore: How about spreading the water and fertilizer (the dead algae) to grow a vast new forest of oxygen-producing trees? This was part of the Silk Road, the trade route between the Far East and Europe which was vitally important to the Eastern Roman Empire and the Alexander's Greek Empire before it. David McNew / Getty Images. Issues: The Sahara desert has many Issues, One of the main issues is that it has such a small population (2 million people) is due to the little rainfall it receives.The Sahara Desert is the size of United States, and one of the hottest places on earth. OGVmZjRlNDA3MzhkNzc3Mzc3YjAxNWU5ZDk3NWRlZGMzMDQ0NWFkNmE2Nzg5 Imagine flooding a desert half the size of the Sahara. Altmans answer is that he and Y Combinator already support, and fund, pragmatic green energy companies. sub-Saharan Africas resilience and efficiency, expand access to global The risks are highest in the 50S-50N range which is the latitudes within which the hottest and driest desert climates presently are (26). Research suggests that bacteria located in massive aquifers beneath the sand and in the sands itself, are capturing carbon from the air. There are few better examples of the ecological dangers of desertification in the 21st century. Dont yet have access? Small mammals are much more abundant and cold blooded reptiles are less abundant. Humans also use off road vehicles on the Sahara Desert which can sometimes destroy desert animal's habitats. Y Combinator doesnt deny the magnitude of the challenge. It's home to many modern protected species including snow leopards, wolves, multiple species of camel, gazelles, and polecats amongst others. the Congo and The Gambia. The simple explanation is that deserts are topographic landscapes that receive little precipitation in a typical year. MzUzZmRiZmY5NTg4ZGMwYWU4ZjUyM2FhZWY1NzczMTIzNWVhM2M4NDliNDBh Trees are also rare with only a handful of species such as the camel thorn acacia in the Gobi (23) and the pistachio tree which grows in the cold deserts of Iran. The UNCCD has also promoted the Great Green Wall Initiative, an effort to restore 386,000 square miles (100 million hectares) across 20 countries in Africa by 2030. A personal interest in environmental science grew alongside his formal studies and eventually formed part of his post-graduate degree where he studied both natural and human changes to the environment of southwest England; his particular interests are in aerial photography. What is most remarkable about these mummies is that they predate the Egyptian society by some 2,000 years and they used some of the same techniques at times (9). Sub-Saharan Africa will be the world's slowest growing region in 2021, and risks falling further behind as the global economy rebounds. These were once marine environments, but the lakes and seas dried up, allowing for the chemical processes that turn organic material into crude oil to create enormous deposits. The result is crop failure, soil erosion, famine and hunger: people are then less able to work when their need is greatest. Unauthorized use is prohibited. All rights reserved. The Sahara desert faces large mining and temperature threats. What little precipitation it receives usually falls in the form of torrential rains. These animals can sniff it out. MWRhM2EyYWQ4ZGU5MjQ5NzA2NmI3YzkzNTlmY2EwMmFmMGMyMmRmYmI0YjBm Shrubs occur in some places and the types of plant you might see on scrubland, but this is rare. For that reason alone, it's necessary to conserve desert spaces and to avoid encroaching on them unnecessarily or altering them for other purposes. A prominent feature of the plains is the dark patina of ferromanganese compounds, called desert varnish, that forms on the surfaces of weathered rocks. Yet eremology is also the study of how deserts are formed. The success of the vaccine rollout also depends crucially on the Biodiversity includes all organisms, species, and populations. We do understand that as they are in the extreme latitudes, that means most cold deserts tend to experience periods (months) of continual dark in the winter and periods of continual sunshine in the summer. How a zoo break-in changed the life of an owl called Flaco, Naked mole rats are fertile until they die, study finds. Like their counterparts to the south, they too are increasingly moving to permanent settlement. 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