Chapter10- Life in the Desert quick revision notes | class7th | geography
Deserts
• Desert is an arid land with little or no vegetation.
• Depending on the temperatures, deserts are of two types:
→ Hot deserts
→ Cold deserts
The Hot Desert – Sahara
• Sahara is the world’s largest desert.
• It has an area of around 8.54 million sq. k m.
• The Sahara desert touches eleven countries.
→ These are Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan , Tunisia and Western Sahara.
• Sahara desert is covered with, there are also gravel plains and elevated plateaus with bare rocky surface which may be more than 2500m high at some places.
Climate
• The climate of the Sahara desert is extremely hot and dry.
• It has a short rainy season.
• Days are unbelievably hot.
• The temperatures during the day may rise as high as 50°C, heating u p the sand and the bare rocks, which in turn radiates heat making everything around hot.
• The nights may be freezing cold with temperatures nearing zero degrees.
Flora and Fauna
• The vegetation includes cactus, date palms and acacia.
• In some places, there are oasis – green islands with date palms surrounding them.
• Camels, hyenas, jackals, foxes, scorpions, many varieties of snakes and lizards are the prominent animal species here.
People
• Various groups of people inhabit the Sahara desert.
• The Bedouins and Tuaregs are nomadic tribes are among them.
→ They rear livestock such as goats, sheep, camels and horses for milk, hair and leather.
• The oasis in the Sahara and the Nile Valley in Egypt supports settled population.
→ Since water is available, the people grow date palms.
→ Crops such as rice, wheat, barley and beans are also grown.
→ Egyptian cotton is also grown in Egypt which is famous worldwide.
• Oil is also discovered in Algeria, Libya and Egypt which constantly transforming the Sahara desert.
• Nowadays, the Sahara Desert is developing.
→ Gleaming glass cased office buildings tower over mosques
→ Superhighways replacing the ancient camel paths.
→ Trucks are replacing camels in the salt trade.
→ Tuaregs are seen acting as guides to foreign tourists.
→ More and more nomadic herdsmen are finding jobs in oil and gas operations.
The Cold Desert – Ladakh
• Ladakh is a cold desert lying in the Great Himalayas, on the eastern side of Jammu and Kashmir.
• The Karakoram Range in the north and the Zanskar mountains in the south enclose it.
• Indus is the most important river of Ladakh.
• Several glaciers are found in Ladakh, for example the Gangri glacier.
Climate
• The altitude in Ladakh varies from about 3000m in Kargil to more than 8,000m in the Karakoram.
→ High altitude makes the climate extremely cold and dry.
• The day temperatures in summer are just above zero degree and the night temperatures well below –30°C.
• There is little rainfall, as low as 10 cm every year as the area lies in the rain shadow of the Himalayas.
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•The area experiences freezing winds and burning hot sunlight.
Flora and Fauna
• Due to high aridity, the vegetation is sparse.
→ There are thin patches of grasses and shrubs for animals to graze.
• During the summers, fruit trees such as apples, apricots and walnuts grow.
• Robins, redstarts, Tibetan snowcock, raven and hoopoe are common species of birds seen in Ladakh.
• The animals of Ladakh are wild goats, wild sheep, yak and special kinds of dogs.
→ The animals are reared to provide for the milk, meat and hides.
People
• In the summer season, the people cultivate barley, potatoes, peas, beans and turnip.
• The winter months are very harsh, people keep themselves engaged in festivities and ceremonies.
• The women are very hard working.
→ They work not only in the house and fields, but also manages mall business and shops.
• Leh, the capital of Ladakh is well connected both by road and air.
→ The National Highway 1A connects Leh to Kashmir Valley through the Zoji la Pass.
• Tourism is a major activity with several tourists streaming in from within India and abroad.
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