sahara desert vs thar desert

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Page 2: SAHARA DESERT VS THAR DESERT

The Sahara is also known as ‘The Great

Desert’ is the largest Subtropical hot desert and third largest desert after Antarctica and the Arctic.

The Thar Desert also known as ‘The Great

Indian Desert’ is a large, arid region in the northwestern part of the IndianSubcontinent that forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan. It is the world's 9th largest subtropical desert.

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Sahara spreads over 9,400,000 square kilometres and covers most of North Africa . . The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea in the east, including parts of the Mediterranean, to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna that composes the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa.

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The desert landforms of the Sahara are shaped by

wind or by extremely rare rainfall and include sand dunes and dune fields or sand seas, stone plateaus , gravel plains , dry valleys , dry lakes and salt flats. Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania.Several deeply dissected mountains and mountain ranges, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the AïrMountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, TibestiMountains, Adrar des Iforas, and the Red Sea hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, ashield volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad.

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The soil of the Thar Desert remains dry for much of the year and is prone to wind erosion. High velocity winds blow soil from the desert, depositing some on neighboring fertile lands, and causing shifting sand dunes within the desert. . Sand dunes are stabilised by erecting micro-windbreak barriers with scrub material and subsequent afforestation of the treated dunes with seedlings of shrubs such as phog,senna, castor oil plant and trees such as gum acacia, Prosopisjuliflora and lebbek tree.

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Sand dunes Sahara desert

THAR DESERT

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Occupation The Thar Desert is one of most heavily populated

desert areas in the world and the main occupations of people living here are agriculture and animal husbandry. Agriculture is not a dependable proposition in this area—after the rainy season, at least 33% of crops fail. Animal husbandry, trees and grasses, intercropped with vegetables or fruit trees, is the most viable model for arid, drought-prone regions. The region faces frequent droughts. Overgrazing due to high animal populations, wind and water erosion, mining and other industries result in serious land degradation.

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FLORA And FAUNA The Saharan flora comprises around 2800 species of vascular plants.

Approximately a quarter of these are endemic. About half of these

species are common to the flora of the Arabian deserts.FAUNA comprises of many species like cheetah etc.

The central Sahara is estimated to include five hundred species of

plants, which is extremely low considering the huge extent of the area.

Plants such as acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and

grasses have adapted to the arid conditions, by growing lower to avoid

water loss by strong winds, by storing water in their thick stems to use it

in dry periods, by having long roots that travel horizontally to reach the

maximum area of water and to find any surface moisture and by having

small thick leaves or needles to prevent water loss by evapo-

transpiration. Plant leaves may dry out totally and then recover.

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FLORA And FAUNA Stretches of sand in the desert are interspersed by hillocks and sandy and

gravel plains. Due to the diversified habitat and ecosystem, the vegetation,

human culture and animal life in this arid region is very rich in contrast to

the other deserts of the world. About 23 species of lizard and 25 species of

snakes are found here and several of them are endemic to the region.

Some wildlife species, which are fast vanishing in other parts of India, are

found in the desert in large numbers such as the blackbuck, chinkara

and Indian wild ass in the Rann of Kutch. They have evolved excellent

survival strategies, their size is smaller than other similar animals living in

different conditions, and they are mainly nocturnal. There are certain other

factors responsible for the survival of these animals in the desert. Due to

the lack of water in this region, transformation of the grasslands into

cropland has been very slow. The protection provided to them by a local

community, the Bishnois, is also a factor. Other mammals of the Thar

Desert include a subspecies of red fox and the caracal.

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MAP OF SAHARA

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MAP OF THAR

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A NATURAL ROCK ARCH IN SAHARA DESERT

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BY – BHAVYA MEHTA

9TH A