3. Results and Discussion
The aridity maps was prepared by using De Martonne’s Aridity Index, Thornthwaite’s Precipitation Effectiveness Index, Thornthwaite’s Moisture Index, UNESCO Aridity Index and Erinc Aridity Index. These indices showed that most of the southern parts of the country lie between arid to hyper arid where as northern parts lie between semi arid to very humid zone (Fig-3). Analysis shows the climate of northern parts is more variable as compare to southern parts. The reason in the variability of the climate in the northern parts is that this region received rainfall in summer due to monsoon systems (July to September) and in winter due to western disturbances (December to March). Southern parts of the country receive most of the rainfall in monsoon season while a meager amount of rainfall in winter. This monsoonal rainfall brings relief to moisture stress to some extent but due to low elevation, higher evapotranspiration and day time temperature, dry climate exists through out the year. Therefore, agriculture activity does not depend on rainfall and proper irrigation is required in the form of canals, river and tube wells. Although, monsoon rainfall bring relief to overcome the moisture stress to some extent. However after that it makes difficult for the agricultural to sustain in this climate.
The total annual mean temperature and evapotranspiration in the south of the country is very much higher than that of north. Whereas, the amount of rainfall is very low in southern parts as compare to northern parts of the country. Because of this, the gap between evapotranspiration and rainfall cause dryness in the region i.e. greater the difference between these two greater will be the aridity of a region. Climate of ar...
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...1: The Climate of North America According to new classification.Geogr.Rev.21 (4), 633-55.
15. Thornthwaite, C.W. 1948: an approach towards rational classification of climate Geogr.Rev.38:55-64.
16. United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, 2006: The Consequences of Desertification Fact Sheet 3. (available at http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/factsheets/showFS.php?number=3)
17. United Nations Environment Programme, 1994: Earth Summit Convention on Desertification, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3-14 June 1992, Report DPI/SD/1576, United Nations, New York.
18. United Nations Environment Programme, 1997: World Atlas of Desertification, 2 ed. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.
19. UNESCO, 1979. Aridity definition (UN documents) United Nation Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, Newyork.
Water shortage in arid and semi-arid regions and declining its availability to a crisis ...
His expertise may attract an array of readers, both newcomers and old-timers. It seems that his intended audience might be those who share his love of the desert and also those who want to know more. The essay is quasi-organized like an educational brochure or an expert interview with an inveterate desert denizen. An unintended audience of course might include the fledgling environmental activists who were emerging in the 1960s to fight for the protection of wilderness. Because of its focus on natural history, the article and the anthology, Desert Solitaire, in which it was published, might...
Cunningham, William P. Cunningham, Mary Ann and Saigo, Barbara. Environmental Science, A Global Concern. McGraw-Hill. New York, NY. 2005.
Agriculture and geography are very closely linked. In our modern civilization with advanced agricultural innovations, geography no longer plays as large of a role. In arid climates, crops can grow with the right irrigation systems and are now much more predictable with pesticides and genetic engineering. In ancient times however, if the landscape wasn’t farmable, it generally stayed that way. Irrigation has been around since 6000 BC but generally depended on the flooding of nearby river systems.
The people affected by Desertification and climate change could move further south of Africa like Cameroon or Congo or other county's around that sort of area, We could do this by Transporting them all by bus, train or car if it is possible.
Niger is eighty-percent desert which doesn't provide natural resources or availability of water, even though the Niger River is a huge resource for Niger. With its beautiful, sparkling water flowing southwest in a sort of crescent shape it is a place of relief. Along this river, they have wonderful areas for farming and grazing and one can find the most populous city and the capitol Niger called Niamey. This Sub-Saharan country not only has the Sahara desert to deal with, but the Tener...
This is a pattern due to the cold water climates. The arid climates are existent mostly in the center of a continent or beneath a continents rain shadow of a large mountain range. The rain shadow is land on a said of a mountain that is very dry because the mountain forces warm air higher into the sky, which cools it and it falls as rain, but only on one side of the mountain. Most of the arid areas or regions do not have regular seasons. An example would be the Sahara Desert which is always hot and dry. Some Arid places do have changes in temperature depending on the latitude and the surrounding climates. This would mean they have two seasons, which would be summer and winter. The temperatures of these locations can reach as high as 130 degrees or as negative as 30 degrees. This temperature also depends on the location at which it is located on the planet. These hot deserts have a poor rate of precipitation due to the lack of water to be evaporated. In order to have an Arid climate there must be less than 10 inches of water which most deserts do. Some of these deserts have less than 10 inches of rain a year.The causes of these poor climates would be the cold currents carrying dry air, so these lands are blasted with dry air most of the
Texas climate is challenging to categorize because of its great size and varying topographic characteristics. Geological factors such as the North American Cordillera hinder air travel west to east and vice versa, while also preventing cold air masses from the Arctic Circle travel southward to into the state. The Gulf of Mexico, supplies the air with moisture and buffers fluctuating temperatures [larkin and Bomar, 1983]. These factors form a range of climates in the state from subtropical-arid to subtropical-humid. [larkin and Bonmar, 1983]. A trend can be seen in relation to average temperature and precipitation. Temperature increases north to south (figure 1) and precipitation increases east to west (figure 2).
SUMMARY: We began this part of the lab by analyzing the three sources of imagery, searching for advantages and disadvantages in each of the enviorments. After, we searched for examples of geological features such as Mountain peak on a ridgeline, drainage basin, canyon of the main stream of the catchment flowing just above the edge of the desert basin, alluvial fan deposited by that main stream just below the edge of and the desert basin.
Works Cited Attoh, Samuel Aryeetey, ed. Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa. 3 rd. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. Book.
Ever since then the deforestation for resources has dramatically increased to an alarming rate. Every second we lose an area of two football fields and every week an area twice as big as Rhode Island. The Rainforests once covered fourteen percent of the Earth compared to the two percent now. In the...
Poverty is one of the primary concerns the world faces in its road to development. Eradication of poverty tends to be the prime aims of governments worldwide. Lack of proper nutrition is a major cause contributing to poverty. Improving agricultural standards can help in producing more food and thus counter the lack of food factor. One way to improve agricultural standards is to develop the irrigation methods used. Irrigation is closely related to poverty. Irrigation benefits the poor through higher production, higher yields, low risk of crop failure and higher and year round farm and non-farm employment. Irrigation leads to high value market oriented agricultural production [1]. However, in developing countries like India, the agricultural sector is heavily dependent on the south-west monsoons. In view of the rising temperatures worldwide due to global warming and changes of weather patterns associated with it, dependence on rains is not always a possible solution. Failure of proper rains can cripple the agricultural sector which can lead to an overall rise in poverty. Thus...
Drought is a multi-causal and complex environmental issue, and can have serious socioeconomic consequences. Recently, IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) concluded that South Asia and the Middle East would experience sever, prolonged droughts as a result of global climate changes, explicitly the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (IPCC, 2007). Drought is a weather-related natural disaster whose effect is aggravated by human activities. Sometime drought affects large regions and even several countries for a long period of time. Drought has a serious impact on food productivity of a land, and even on the life expectancy of inhabitants. The aftermath of drought involves in socioeconomic, ecological issues (WGA, 1996) (Jeyaseelan, 2005; Pongracza et al., 1996). Iran encompassing drylands has been periodically jeopardized by drought events, which have devastatingly affected society and environment (Shamsipour et al., 2008). Therefore, the study of drought needs several sources of datasets. In other words, the design of a planning project for a region for sustainable development, the acquisition of updated data is critical, particularly for countries with arid to semi-arid climates.
The Sahara’s climate is very hot and dry. Although it is very hot during the day, it does become cold at night. On average, it only has 8 inches of rainfall per year. The Sahara's climate consists of b...
Global warming is one of the main causes, which leads to the lack of water and drought. A drought-like condition exists in most of India’s part. Government of India states that 68% of the country is disposed to the drought, which (consequences are) leads to massive migration of people to more favorable places, famine, conflicts among inhabitants. India is known in the world as one of the biggest producers of water-intensive crops such as rice, sugarcane and wheat. According to a survey done by Grail Research, approximately 82% of total water is used for agricultural consumption and 90% of it is employed for irrigation of rice, wheat and sugarcane (Grail Research, LLC, 2009). There are several solutions which could lead to the decr...