While the Simpson and the Great Victoria deserts are the best known, Australia has a total of 10 deserts. Defining a desert in Australia is complicated. Sand dunes in Sturt Stony Desert. In the subtropics, a belt of high pressure exists globally at about latitude 30 degrees north and south — the latter runs across Western Australia and South Australia and through the Great Victoria Desert.
That pressure creates dry conditions that are carried by a general easterly flow that spreads the arid landscape through the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia. Then, locked away from the coast, these desert areas are separated from moisture sources. Higher elevated areas, such as Alice Springs, have seen night temperatures as low as Australian deserts average an annual rainfall below mm. The rainfall is rarely evenly spread throughout the year — often the annual average will fall in a month, and has been known to fall in a single day.
Less than 3 per cent of the population, or less than , people, live in the desert region. Yet Indigenous Australians have inhabited the land for tens of thousands of years, some communities continuing to do so. Image: Frances Andrijich.
The most arid and dry parts of Australia centre around the Lake Eyre basin, which can range from an average rainfall of mm to mm per year. The lake is an inward draining catchment spanning 1. Because of natural aversion in the landscape, most water is lost as it travels towards the lake through evaporation and infiltration. The GVD bioregion supports nine threatened plant species and 24 threatened or vulnerable animal species, including:.
Introduced herbivores such as camels, donkeys, horses and rabbits cause significant damage to desert ecosystems through overgrazing, particularly around water sources where they tend to congregate in dry times. Camels foul waterholes and have significant impacts upon fragile salt lake and freshwater ecosystems.
It burns hotter and more quickly than the native grasses it replaces. Buffel grass invasion in combination with larger and more intense wildfires driven by climate change have the potential to devastate the biodiversity of arid ecosystems. The project area supports an exceptional range of animals and plants including numerous iconic threatened species such as the bilby and rock wallaby. Indigenous Australians have inhabited the desert country for thousands of years and continue to have strong cultural and spiritual connections to the desert.
The deserts span 2. The Tanami Desert covers , square kilometres, most of which lies in the Northern Territory. It contains vast areas of red sand plains and dunefields, and extends across , square kilometres of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The Little Sandy Desert sits to the east of the Pilbara region and to the south of the western section of the Great Sandy Desert and covers , square kilometres of the central rangelands of Western Australia.
The Canning Stock Route passes across both these deserts. The region is inhabited by the Mandilara indigenous inhabitants. It is named after Alfred Gibson, an explorer who was lost in the desert in and was never found again. Despite the large size, the Gibson Desert is still in a pristine state.
The altitude of the desert extends up to 1, feet in certain locations. The landscape of the Gibson Desert features gravel-covered terrains covered by desert grasses, rocky ridges, upland areas, and dune fields and undulating red sand plains. The desert also houses a few, scattered salt-water lakes. Indigenous Australians live in the area and follow a traditional way of life. The Simpson desert occupies an area of , square km and occupies parts of Queensland, South Australia, and Northern Territory.
These dunes are static and are held in place by vegetation. The 40 meters tall Nappanerica dune is the largest dune in the area. The water from the basin rises to the surface at a large number of natural springs distributed throughout the desert. However, since the desert is not accessible by any maintained roads and the summer temperatures here are extremely harsh, the government has closed the desert to tourists in summer to avoid unpleasant circumstances. Drought resistant shrubs and grasses cover large sections of the desert.
Fauna inhabiting the Simpson Desert include the water-holding frog, the Eyrean grasswren, the gray grasswren, etc. Several seasonal migrant birds can be spotted in the seasonal wetlands of the Simpson Desert like the Lake Eyre, the Coongie Lakes, etc. Examples include the musk duck, glossy ibis, great egret, banded stilt, and others. The mound springs of the Great Artesian Basin also host several species of fish, invertebrates, and plants.
The desert has a rocky terrain with small hills and is traversed by the Tanami Track. The important fauna species found here include the little native mouse, the long-tailed planigale, the Western chestnut mouse, the freckled duck, gray falcon, etc. Several indigenous groups are also based in this desert. The desert encompasses an area of , square km and is surrounded by the Gibson Desert, the Great Sandy Desert, and the Tanami Desert.
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