Being Godless Wastelands Are Wrong

In an arid land, there is less precipitation than the potential evaporation which is not the case in humid regions.

The Chihuahuan desert is large area of the northern Mexico and runs into the southern part of the United Stated which include west Texas. The region of the desert has a high altitude of 1000 to 1500 meters which fall to about 350 meters along the Rio Grande River. Summers are very hot and the winter are somewhat cool, which some night frosts. Rainfall in this area is about 20-30 cm which mostly happens during the summer time. In most of the Chihuahuan Desert most of it has calcareous soil that are derived from the limestone beds. The Chihuahuan Desert has many types of vegetation such as Yucca, such as Torrey yucca or the banana yucca, they are very difficult in telling them apart because of hybridization, because they are

Desertification typically occurs as a result of poor management by human populations. In earlier times of history, desertification was not seen as a widespread issue, because most humans led hunter-gatherer lifestyles that caused them to frequently relocate. Thus, the land was not populated for enough time for it to become overgrazed by livestock or depleted of nutrients by over-farming and deforestation. However, in more recent history, desertification has become much more significant as agriculture-based societies became more widespread and the need to produce as much as many goods as possible overrode the need to conserve Earth’s

Coal in the United States has long been the #1 producer of energy. Massive seams of coal are found in the Appalachian Mountains, and our reliance on this fossil fuel has meant devastation for many mountain residents and over 500 mountains. As our society advances, the need for more energy advances. What were once beautiful rolling hills are now flattened plateaus reminiscent of a landscape you would see in the desert. We as a nation have only short-term interest in our environment, and choose to ignore the many warning signs this planet continues to offer us. Left in our path of destruction are the many residents of Appalachia and a landscape that begs us for forgiveness.

The first biome I would like to talk about is the grassland biome. There are two kinds of grassland biomes; tropic and temperate grasslands. West Virginia is part of the temperate grassland. Sometimes, the temperature can reach up to 100 degrees. In the winter, the temperatures are very cold. Grassland biomes receive between 10 to 30 inches of rain.

A biome can be best described as a group of flora and fauna in a specified habitat that live together and occur naturally. Meanwhile, a chaparral, which roots from the Spanish word chaparro (meaning scrub oak), is a community of plants that mainly consist of dense trees and shrubs that have adapted to the Mediterranean climate. This climate is an essential characteristic of this biome. Another essential characteristic of this biome is its susceptibility to droughts and wildfires. This is caused by the lack of rainfall it receives per year. For comparison’s sake, the average yearly amount of rainfall the contiguous United States receives is 30.21 inches (or 767 millimeters) while chaparral biomes receive a mere 10 to 15 inches of rainfall a year. Wildfires are a major aspect to the chaparral cycle because they clear the land of dead vegetation in order to make room for new

The first biome I am going to discuss is the Central Prairies and Woodlands biome. This biome is located in the middle of biome 2 and 3 covering all of the coastal area from the Gulf of Mexico. The precipitation gradient in this area is the highest in the state of Texas. Averaging from 75-115 cm/yr. this concludes that it’s a high precipitation area which means that the land in that area is green and hydrated. Since this biome extends from the south were the coast is all the way to the top of eastern Texas the temperature varies depending on the location you are looking at the further north its colder and the more south you go the hotter, humid it gets. The kinds of plants that are in this regions are mostly tall green

Now, humans have a steady food supply so they do not have to move about. Therefore, people use fences to keep their animals in one place, which causes overgrazing. Today we see many subjects being affected by desertification. Ute Schaeffer reports the affects of desertification in, Down to Earth: News & Views on Desertification,“(doc.3) It has presented a challenge for governments and aid agencies in over 110 countries for some time, and is a contributing factor in poverty and regional conflicts, for example in Sudan. It has also been a major issue in Egypt, where 90% of the country’s land mass is desert. Faced with a rising population, the government has had to undertake a number of settlement and irrigation projects to create additional living and working space.” Necessary changes were made in order to adapt to the conditions of the desert and the obstacles that have to be faced. It is always presumed that there are only negative aspects to deserts but this isn’t always the case. There is a side to the Sahara desert that acts as a home to several living organisms. The Sahara has vegetation and access to water, which allows life to exist in this region. The Nile Valley, for example, is an area that is still quite full of foliage, trees and other growing things. This area is an exception, because of the way it is fed by the Nile River. Another area of the Sahara that has some vegetation to it is in the North, along the Mediterranean where olive trees grow

This causes the desertification and it also slows down progress for finding areas that can be medicine for certain diseases. Grasslands act as a big sponge, as they are able to absorb the rain that falls throughout the grassland. Because of this, there's fertile land, and abundance of nutrients for migrating wildlife. In south Africa, companies have put non-native trees in the grassland which is taking away nutrients from the area. In the Florida Everglades, they're only about 80 Florida Panthers left. The big problem that I notice is that we are able to make plenty of land for agriculture but not for people. In only three years, farmers in Zambia have created food security for 16,000 farmers. Glaciers are melting all run the world, however the speed of this has went up three times as much in the last 50

Deserts— typically known as very hot, dry places, such as the Sahara Desert in Africa. However, there is a different type of desert that is found all over the United States, and people reside in them every day. These deserts can be cold, hot, rainy, or dry, as they are not identified based on climate and nature. Instead of lacking rainfall and vegetation, as normal deserts do, they lack something else— access to healthy foods. These deserts are known as food deserts, where residents do not have easy access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and other wholesome foods.

The concept of a Food Desert is not new, “British politicians introduced the idea of food deserts in the mid-1990s… suggested a link might exist between distance to a grocery store and the diets of poor people” (Gilligan, 2014). It took many years before the idea of a Food Desert was recognized in the United States of America but it is now estimated that, “About 23.5 million people live in food deserts” ("11 Facts About Food Deserts | DoSomething.org | Volunteer for Social Change," n.d.). The inability to obtain healthy food choices leads to, “people in low-income communities [suffering] more from diet-related diseases like obesity and diabetes” (Truehaft & Karpyn, 5, n.d.). The existence of these Food Deserts is a factor that works to keep those in poverty down and makes progress even harder for them to

The Aquatic biome is the most significant out of all of the five biomes. Water is essential and important for life here on Earth. It’s what we all need in order to survive. Water also supports life, and many different species live in it, or for some parts of their life. Since water covers one-thirds of the Earth, the temperature of the aquatic biome tends to be humid and slightly cool. It is fairly constant so it can be able to tolerate life. This region is filled with so many different species of animals some big and some even small. The Aquatic biome is broken into two regions freshwater and marine

The term desert is strongly connected to the image of an extremely harsh environment void of any life. The sand dunes at the Gulf of California would fit this description of a desert biome, but for large parts the Sonoran Desert has a stunning array of different organisms.

Much of northwest Mexico—including Baja California and the northern regions of the Pacific Coast lowlands—is quite arid, receiving less than 130 mm (5 in) of rain per year. The northern Gulf Coast plains are semiarid, receiving about 250 to 560 mm (about 10 to 22 in) of rainfall annually. As on the central plateau, rainfall increases toward the south on both the western and eastern coasts.

Desertification is defined by Scott E Spoolman and G. Miller in their book Living in the Environment as “the conversion of rangeland, rain-fed cropland, or irrigated cropland to desert-like land with a drop of agricultural activity of 10% or more”. To put this as simple as possible desertification is turning usable soil into desert. Dissertation is hard to observe but over time