SW Asia:SW Asia:Climate and VegetationClimate and Vegetation

The region is dry – most of it averages just 18 inches of rain per year.

• Compare that with the 48 inches that Houston annually receives. That’s almost an extra three and a half feet of water.

Deserts

• Rub al-Khali

• “The Empty Quarter” or “The Place Where No One Comes Out”

• This is a massive desert in the southeastern Arabian Peninsula and is about the size of Texas.

• Some of the sand dunes can reach 800 feet tall. The Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall.

• An-Nafud Desert

• North of Rub Al-Khali

• Syrian Desert

• North of An-Nafud

• Negev Desert

• Mainly located in Israel

Sometimes you’ll get an oasis.

• These are pockets of vegetation in the desert that are usually fed by underground springs.

Salt Deserts

• Not all deserts are just a bunch of sand. Sometimes they’re salt flats.

• Salt flats develop when winds evaporate the moisture in the soil, but leave behind the salts that were in that water.

• This is what happens in Iran when the mountains surrounding the country keep out rain.

• Iran has two salt flat deserts: the Dasht-e Kavir in the central area and the Dasht-e Lut in the east.

• They’re hot, uninhabited and nearly devoid of any flora or fauna

Dasht-e Kavir

Dasht-e Lut

This is the Bonneville Salt Flat in Utah.