Question

give an example of how a tropical desert and has been transformed in recent years

Answer 1

Deserts provide migratory corridors for many
species. Non-desert birds on cross-desert
migration across the Sahara compete increasingly
with the human population of the region for rare
oases that cover only two per cent of the area.
The desert locust (Schistocera gregaria) is normally
found in 25 countries of the Sahel and the Arabian
Peninsula, but during epidemic outbreaks can
spread over up to 65 countries, consuming 100
000 tonnes of vegetation a day, from India to
Morocco, and even crossing the Atlantic to the
Caribbean and Venezuela.
Deserts have provided trade corridors from times
immemorial through which goods and cultures
travelled. Water-soluble salts, such as gypsum,
borates, table salt, sodium and potassium nitrates
have been historically a product of deserts.
Evaporite minerals, such as soda, boron, and
nitrates, are common in deserts and are not found
in other ecosystems. A sizeable share (30–60 per
cent) of other minerals and fossil energy used
globally is exported from deserts, including bauxite,
copper, diamonds, gold, phosphate rock, iron ore,
uranium ore, oil, and natural gas.
Because of their warm climate, deserts also export
agricultural products, produced under irrigation, to
non-desert areas. Agriculture and horticulture are
already profitable in many deserts, as in Israel and
Tunisia, and have great further potential. A new
non-conventional desert export is derived from
aquaculture, which paradoxically, can be more
efficient in water use than desert plants, and can take
advantage of the deserts’ mild winter temperatures
and low cost of land. Biologically-derived valuable
chemicals, produced by micro-algae as well as
medicinal plants, are also manufactured in deserts,
capitalizing on their high year-round solar radiation,
and exported to global markets. Besides the ongoing
export of wild plant products from deserts to non-
deserts, there is a pharmaceutical potential in desert