Deserts-lacks water and resources and temperatures can be extreme Human Factors Part 1 Settlement patterns have always been affected by the technology available to settlers, and especially by methods of transportation.
Full Answer
What is the impact of humans on the desert?
What is the impact of humans on the desert? Deserts are increasing in size daily. This process is known as desertification. Desertification is the process of fertile land turning into desert over time. Areas on the edge of hot deserts are especially at risk of desertification. What are the causes of desertification?
How vulnerable are human settlements to desertification?
Desert margins are particularly vulnerable and it is there that human settlements are most at risk of desertification, according the report by the United Nations Environment Programme. "True deserts are not the final stage of a process of desertification," says the report, Global Deserts Outlook, published today.
How did Humans settle in the desert?
Human settlements at aquifers and oasis. An aquifer is a place where the water table is higher and intersects with the surface thus allowing people to utilise the water in the form of irrigation, domestic and industrial use. Most desert settlement are usually near water sources.
What are the main features of desert settlement?
Most desert settlement are usually near water sources. Activities usually involve the growing of palm trees or pastoralism for example the people of Sahel and the Beja people of the Sahara desert.
How have deserts affected human settlement in human history?
Deserts also discouraged settlement. They were hot and dry. They contained very little water for farming. Sandstorms occurred when strong winds carried dense clouds of sand that could block out the sun.
How does the desert affect people's lives?
Because humans need so much water, surviving in deserts is very difficult. Not only is it difficult for humans to survive in deserts - it is also hard for animals, plants and other forms of life to live. This, in turn, makes it even harder for human life to persist because there is always risk of running out of food.
How human activities are contributing to the expansion of deserts?
Human activities that contribute to desertification include the expansion and intensive use of agricultural lands, poor irrigation practices, deforestation, and overgrazing. These unsustainable land uses place enormous pressure on the land by altering its soil chemistry and hydrology.
What influences where people settle?
Climatic, Economic, Physical, and Traditional Factors Similarly, physical factors like shelter and drainage, as well as soil quality, water supply, ports, and resources, can affect whether or not a location is suitable for building a city.
Why are deserts important to humans?
Humans rely on desert ecosystems for survival as they provide shelter, energy, minerals, and trade opportunities. The deserts of the world are of great importance to the planet and its people.
How do humans adapt to live in the desert?
Their traditional lifestyle has adapted to these extremely arid conditions. Their nomadic lifestyle means they do not settle in one area for long. Instead, they move on frequently to prevent exhausting an area of its resources. They have herds of animals which are adapted to living in desert conditions, such as camels.
What are the positive impacts of deserts?
Desert soil holds an abundance of nutrients because of the minute amounts of rainfall and surface runoff, and therefore lends itself easily to agricultural use, provided that an efficient irrigation system is developed.
How does desertification affect humans and animals?
When there are insufficient rains, the water bodies also become completely dry or slightly lower the level of water than average. The lands also turn bare, leaving nothing for the animals to feed. This causes devastating effects on the health of the animal and frequently results in death.
How does desertification affect humans in Africa?
The degradation of drylands in Africa is forcing people who can no longer make a living off the land to move to urban areas. According to the UN Population Division, the population of Lagos, Nigeria, will grow from 13.4 million in 2000 to 23.2 million in 2015, partly due to an influx of displaced rural communities.
How does the environment affect human settlement?
Settlement structure is a driver of environmental change as it influences the amount of natural land that is converted into human habitation, the demand for non-renewable natural resources and the production of pollution and waste.
How does climate affect settlement?
The most widespread direct risk to human settlements from climate change is flooding and landslides. Projected increases in rainfall intensity and, in coastal areas, sea-level rise will be the culprits. Cities on rivers and coasts are particularly at risk.
Which resources are important to human settlements?
The presence of wood (trees), stone and metal ores allowed us to manufacture and build products like tools and weapons. And since these natural resources could be sold, a settlement located near these natural resources would prosper. And then there were the rarer, expensive natural resources, like gold, silver and oil.
What is one disadvantage of living in a desert?
Disadvantage: Lack of Water Lack of water, the most evident disadvantage to deserts in general, results from the combined effects of insufficient rainfall and rapid water evaporation by nearby land masses.
What are 5 facts about the desert?
Fun Desert Facts And Information For ChildrenAntarctica Is A Huge Ice Desert! ... People Do Live In Deserts. ... Desert Plants Store Water. ... The Arabian Desert Falls Under Deserts And Xeric Shrublands. ... Desert Biomes are Desert Ecosystems. ... Animals Come Out At Night. ... Weather Is Different For Every Desert.More items...•
What is the human impact on the Sahara desert?
Humans have indirectly impacted the Sahara with their increasing growing ecological footprint. The temperatures of the early are rapidly increasing. There is an increase in infrared radiation escaping from the atmosphere into space. An indirect measure of how much heat is being trapped.
How do people live in deserts?
Title#N#Human Life within Deserts 1 Small groups of people, like the bushmen of the Kalahari and the Australian aborigines, live a semi-nomadic food-gathering and hunting life, and have adapted to their environment with remarkable efficiency. Over the years, the hunter-gatherers have had little lasting impact on their environment. 2 By contrast, pastoral nomads seasonally cultivate selected areas. Pastoral nomads and shifting cultivators have greatly affected the natural flora and fauna. They respond to physical conditions through their mobility. 3 Many millions live a settled life in a relatively moist environment within arid zones near oases, on a flood plain or delta, or in an area irrigated by water brought from afar. Irrigation, with its associated land-use and settlement, has changed entire ecosystems, and ecological repercussions have been felt far beyond the irrigated areas.
What are the problems with desert soils?
Problems. Problems such as water logging and saline accumulation. Water not used by crops, lost by evapotranspiration, or drained away, accumulates as rising groundwater. In desert conditions soils rapidly acquire salt from the evaporation of dilute saline irrigation water.
What are the problems of irrigation in Pakistan?
Irrigation has brought some problems for Pakistan. Dams and diversions, have caused floodplains to be deprived of alluvium and its nutrients, and to need expensive fertiliser. There is increased danger from infections like bilharzia.
Why were canals built in Pakistan?
Large canals were built to transfer water from the western rivers to supplement those further east . More recently, high dams in the mountains have provided storage and hydro-electricity. Perennial canals now serve most of the cropped land. Despite the aridity, over half Pakistan’s workforce is engaged in agriculture.
How do pastoral nomads affect the environment?
By contrast, pastoral nomads seasonally cultivate selected areas. Pastoral nomads and shifting cultivators have greatly affected the natural flora and fauna. They respond to physical conditions through their mobility.
How did the Earth create lakes?
Other methods were to use shallow, gravity-fed channels, blocked by mud packing as required; cisterns; underground caverns; depressions dug to catch run-off and retain water moving by gravity through the sub-soil; and the creation of lakes during the rains by blocking stream beds with boulders and earth dams.
What are some examples of people who live semi-nomadic lives?
Small groups of people, like the bushmen of the Kalahari and the Australian aborigines , live a semi-nomadic food-gathering and hunting life, and have adapted to their environment with remarkable efficiency. Over the years, the hunter-gatherers have had little lasting impact on their environment.
What are the human activities in the desert?
ZIMSEC O Level Geography Notes: Human Activities in Deserts 1 In spite of their hostile enviroments brought about by aridity leading to shortage of water, pasture, wood fuel and other wood resources, remoteness, infertile and salty soils, disruptive dust storms and temperature extremes most people still choose to settle there and engage in various economic and agricultural activities. 2 These activities include nomadic pastoralism and other forms of agriculture, oil drilling and other forms of mineral exploitation.
Why are satellites important in deserts?
The development of satellite technologies such allows people in remote parts of the deserts e.g. Oil fieds to use these devices to communicate with other parts of the world thus reducing the remoteness of the region and improving the flow of information.
What are some examples of activities that involve palm trees?
Activities usually involve the growing of palm trees or pastoralism for example the people of Sahel and the Beja people of the Sahara desert. There are also some perennial rivers that transverse deserts and people tend to settle along their banks as the rivers acts as a lifeline.
What activities did the Bedouin nomads engage in?
The Bedouin nomads also engage in cross desert trading activities with various tribal groups.
What is a town that originates from the influx of people as a result of mineral discovery?
Towns and cities that originate from the influx of people as a result of mineral discovery are known as Boom towns.
Why are dams built?
Dams can also be constructed to ease water shortages, provide Hydro-electic power and control flooding an example is the Aswan Dam in Egypt. Various roads and railway lines have been constructed across deserts allowing for the fast transportation of goods across deserts without relying on camels.
Why are deserts threatened?
The deserts of the world are threatened by a combination of human exploitation and climate change that could, within decades, wipe out many unique habitats and rare species, an authoritative study has found.
What is the human exploitation of deserts?
Meanwhile, the human exploitation of desert regions - resulting in the drainage of underground aquifers and soil poisoning through sal inisation - is accelerating the rate at which deserts are drying out to the point of being killed off. Desert margins are particularly vulnerable and it is there that human settlements are most at risk ...
What is the threat to the desert?
Desert life threatened by climate change and human exploitation. The deserts of the world are threatened by a combination of human exploitation and climate change that could, within decades, wipe out many unique habitats and rare species, an authoritative study has found.
What animals are at risk in the desert?
Desert animals at risk include the gazelle, the oryx, the addax, the Arabian tahr, the Barbary sheep and the Asian houbara bustard. "We risk losing not only astounding landscapes and ancient cultures, but also some amazing wild species, which, may hold some keys to our survival," he said.
How much of the Earth's land is desert?
Deserts account for up to 25 per cent of the Earth's land surface, are home to half a billion people and account for 12 per cent of the biodiversity "hotspots" - the richest areas in terms of rare animals and plants.
Who is Andrew Warren?
Andrew Warren, a professor of geography at University College London and one of the report's lead authors, said that over the course of his 45-year career he has witnessed the growing threat to deserts. "What alarms me now is that they are threatened as never before, by climate change, by over-exploitation of groundwater, ...
What causes the expansion of the Sahara Desert into the Sahel?
Global climate change due to human activities and pollution causes the expansion southward of the Sahara Desert into the Sahel. The Sahel is a region just south of the Sahara desert that extends from the east to the west coast of Africa.
How to stop the encroachment of the Sahara?
In order to stop the encroachment of the Sahara, experts have suggested the construction of a Green Wall or a wall of trees that stretches across the south ern border of the Sahara from Senegal in the west to Djibouti on the east. Experts believe that a wall of tree not only operate as a windbreak to hold back the desert sands, ...
Why do trees need a wall?
Experts believe that a wall of tree not only operate as a windbreak to hold back the desert sands, but the roots also help to prevent soil erosion. The plan specifies the introduction of native trees to the Green Wall that are more likely to survive in the arid environment.
Is the Sahara desert degraded?
Not only is this region already environmentally degraded but the people living in it are poor. As the Sahara reaches into the region, desertification of the Sahel occurs, damaging the semi-arid ecosystem and destroying Africa's farmland. In order to stop the encroachment of the Sahara, experts have suggested the construction ...
Why do deserts exist?
Interior Deserts. Interior desert s, which are found in the heart of continents, exist because no moisture-laden winds reach them. By the time air masses from coastal areas reach the interior, they have lost all their moisture. Interior deserts are sometimes called inland deserts.
What causes subtropical deserts?
Subtropical Deserts. Subtropical desert s are caused by the circulation patterns of air mass es. They are found along the Tropic of Cancer, between 15 and 30 degrees north of the Equator, or along the Tropic of Capricorn, between 15 and 30 degrees south of the Equator.
What is the largest desert in the world?
The world’s largest hot desert, the Sahara, is a subtropical desert in northern Africa. The Sahara Desert is almost the size of the entire continental United States. Other subtropical deserts include the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa and the Tanami Desert in northern Australia. Coastal Deserts.
How much precipitation does a desert receive?
Most experts agree that a desert is an area of land that receives no more than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of precipitation a year. The amount of evaporation in a desert often greatly exceed s the annual rainfall. In all deserts, there is little water available for plants and other organisms.
How much of the world is covered by deserts?
Although the word “desert” may bring to mind a sea of shifting sand, dune s cover only about 10 percent of the world’s deserts. Some deserts are mountainous.
What are the adjectives for deserts?
People often use the adjectives “hot,” “dry,” and “empty” to describe deserts, but these words do not tell the whole story. Although some deserts are very hot, with daytime temperature s as high as 54°C (130°F), other deserts have cold winters or are cold year-round. And most deserts, far from being empty and lifeless, ...
Where does water come from in the desert?
Rain is usually the main source of water in a desert, but it falls very rarely. Many desert dwellers rely on groundwater, stored in aquifer s below the surface. Groundwater comes from rain or other precipitation, like snow or hail. It seeps into the ground, where it can remain for thousands of years.
