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Without trees the soil on the ground is free to blow away and the quality of the soil goes down. The quality of the soil also goes down because with lack of trees nothing can absorb the rain water.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation

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Weather patterns get affected by deforestation because of the increased level of carbon dioxide. That has increased the amount of deaths and respiration problems like asthma. 70 percent of species effected by deforestation doesn't survive the process.
http://education.seattlepi.com/dangers-deforestation-environment-human-life-4739.html

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Loggers can lose their job is they make a mistake while cutting down the trees or do not work at a fast enough rate. Deforestation also affects hunters when all the trees are cut down in the area where they are hunting.
https://www.smore.com/48rp4-deforestation

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Deforestation can drive people away from areas for various reasons. One reason is hunting. Some people enjoy living in wooded areas so they can go hunting and with no trees they can't hunt near their house which may cause problems with food supply.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation

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When deforestation occurs  the air becomes polluted. Carbon dioxide gets released into the air and can become dangerous and/or harmful to breathe.
For example: In Canada 3 billion to 6 billion trees are cut down each year to due deforestation.
Our Science. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/our-science/no_trees_no_humans

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On the right side of this orthorectified image of eastern Alberta, Canada, the Athabasca River can be seen running vertically past the Athabasca Oil Sands, near Fort McMurray.

Oil sands, also known as tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen - extremely heavy, semi-solid crude oil that is mixed with silica sand, clay minerals and water. The largest reservoir of crude bitumen in the world is found here in the Athabasca deposit.

The UK Guardian Newspaper and Greenpeace recently reported that Canada's boreal forest - a continuous belt of coniferous trees separating the tundra to the north and temperate rainforest and deciduous woodlands to the south - is being flattened and destroyed in order to extract oil from the tar sands.

The striking photographs show how Canada's magnificent boreal forest is being destroyed by the rush to extract oil from the tar sands just below the surface. The first two photographs show how large areas of forest have been cleared in order to extract the oil.

The third photograph shows the oily surface of the Mildred Lake tailings pond adjacent to the Syncrude upgrader north of Fort McMurray. The final one shows clumps of trees that have become isolated amid the destruction of the landscape around them.

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Earth Snapshot * Destruction of Boreal Forest Near Athabasca Oil Sands, Canada - September 8th, 2010

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On the right side of this orthorectified image of eastern Alberta, Canada, the Athabasca River can be seen running vertically past the Athabasca Oil Sands, near Fort McMurray. Oil sands, also known as tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen - extremely heavy, semi-solid crude oil that is mixed with silica sand, clay minerals and water.

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Some common desert plants:

Abal (in fresh flowers in the spring)

Acacia

Agave

Cactus (various types)

Desert raisin

For example: In Southeastern Arizona there are cactus flowers that are edible.

Finding Food in the Desert. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2016, from http://crisistimes.com/desert_food.php

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In deserts it can be a health risk because the temperature fluctuates. During the day temperatures can get as high as 140 degrees. But at night it can get as low as 50 degrees. Dehydration is a common health risk in the desert as well because there can be lack of water. Sandstorms and dangerous insects/bugs can be an issue too.
For example: The Arabian Desert is one of the most dangerous deserts in the world.

Arabian Desert. (n.d.). Retrieved November 28, 2016, from https://www.britannica.com/place/Arabian-Desert

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The Arabian Desert ( Arabic: ٱلصَّحْرَاء ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة) is a vast desert wilderness in West Asia that occupies almost the entire Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers (900,000 sq mi). It stretches from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It is the fifth largest desert in the world and the largest in Asia. At its center is Ar-Rub' al-Khali (The Empty Quarter), one of the largest continuous bodies of sand in the world. It is an extension of the Sahara Desert.

Gazelles, oryx, sand cats, and spiny-tailed lizards are just some of the desert-adapted species that survive in this extreme environment, which features everything from red dunes to deadly quicksand. The climate is mostly dry (the major part receives around 100 mm (3.9 in) of rain per year, but some very rare places receive as little as 50 mm), and temperatures oscillate between very high heat and seasonal night time freezes. It is part of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome and lie in biogeographical realms of the Palearctic (northern part) and Afrotropical (southern part).

The Arabian Desert ecoregion has little biodiversity, although a few endemic plants grow here. Many species, such as the striped hyena, jackal and honey badger have died out as a result of hunting, habitat destruction, overgrazing by livestock, off-road driving, and human encroachment on their habitat. Other species, such as the Arabian sand gazelle, have been successfully re-introduced and are protected at reserves.

A satellite image of the Arabian Desert by NASA World Wind

The desert lies mostly in Saudi Arabia and covers most of the country. It extends into neighboring southern Iraq, southern Jordan, central Qatar, most of the Abu Dhabi emirate in the United Arab Emirates, western Oman, and northeastern Yemen. The ecoregion also includes most of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and the adjacent Negev desert in southern Israel.

The Rub' al-Khali desert is a sedimentary basin stretching along a south-west to north-east axis across the Arabian Shelf. At an altitude of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), rock landscapes yield to the Rub' al-Khali, a vast stretch of sand whose extreme southern point crosses the center of Yemen. The sand overlies gravel or gypsum plains and the dunes reach maximum heights of up to 250 m (820 ft). The sands are predominantly silicates, composed of 80 to 90% quartz and the remainder feldspar, whose iron oxide-coated grains color the sands orange, purple, and red.

A corridor of sandy terrain known as the Ad-Dahna desert connects the An-Nafud desert (65,000 km ² or 40,389 square miles) in the north of Saudi Arabia to the Rub' al-Khali in the south-east.[citation needed ] The Tuwaiq escarpment is an 800 km (500 mi) arc that includes limestone cliffs, plateaus, and canyons.[citation needed ] There are brackish salt flats, including the quicksands of Umm al Samim. The Wahiba Sands of Oman are an isolated sand sea bordering the east coast.

The Arabian Desert has a subtropical, hot desert climate, similar to the climate of the Sahara Desert (the world's largest hot desert). The Arabian Desert is actually an extension of the Sahara Desert over the Arabian peninsula.

The climate is mainly dry. Most areas get around 100 mm (3.9 in) of rain per year. Unlike the Sahara Desert-more than half of which is hyperarid (having rainfall of less than 50 mm (2.0 in) per year)-the Arabian Desert has only a few hyperarid areas. These rare driest areas may get only 30 to 40 mm (1.6 in) of rain per year.

The Arabian Desert's sunshine duration index is very high by global standards: between 2,900 hours (66.2% of daylight hours) and 3,600 hours (82.1% of daylight hours), but typically around 3,400 hours (77.6% of daylight hours). Thus clear-sky conditions with plenty of sunshine prevail over the region throughout the year, and cloudy periods are infrequent. Visibility at ground level is relatively low, despite the brightness of the sun and moon, because of dust and humidity.

Temperatures remain high year round. In the summer, in low-lying areas, average high temperatures are generally over 40 °C (104 °F). In extremely low-lying areas, especially along the Persian Gulf (near sea level), summer temperatures can reach 48 °C (118 °F). Average low temperatures in summer are typically over 20 °C (68 °F) and in the south can sometimes exceed 30 °C (86 °F). Record high temperatures above 50 °C (122 °F) have been reached in many areas of the desert, partly because its overall elevation is relatively low.[citation needed ]

The Arabian Desert ecoregion has about 900 species of plants. The Rub'al-Khali has very limited floristic diversity. There are only 37 plant species, 20 recorded in the main body of the sands and 17 around the outer margins. Of these 37 species, one or two are endemic. Vegetation is very diffuse but fairly evenly distributed, with some interruptions of near sterile dunes. Some typical plants are Calligonum crinitum on dune slopes, Cornulaca arabica (saltbush), Salsola stocksii (saltbush), and Cyperus conglomeratus. Other widespread species are Dipterygium glaucum, Limeum arabicum, and Zygophyllum mandavillei. Very few trees are found except at the outer margin (typicallyAcacia ehrenbergiana and Prosopis cineraria). Other species are a woody perennial Calligonum comosum, and annual herbs such as Danthonia forskallii.

There are 102 native species of mammals. Native mammals include the Arabian oryx ( Oryx leucoryx), sand gazelle ( Gazella marica), mountain gazelle ( G. gazella), Nubian ibex ( Capra nubiana), Arabian wolf ( Canis lupus arabs), striped hyaena ( Hyaena hyaena), caracal ( Caracal caracal), sand cat ( Felis margarita), red fox ( Vulpes vulpes), and Cape hare ( Lepus capensis). The Asiatic cheetah and Asiatic lion used to live in the Arabian Desert. The ecoregion is home to 310 bird species.

The area is home to several different cultures, languages, and peoples, with Islam as the predominant faith. The major ethnic group in the region is the Arabs, whose primary language is Arabic.

In the center of the desert lies Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, with more than 7 million inhabitants. Other large cities, such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Kuwait City, lie on the coast of the Persian Gulf.

Natural resources available in the Arabian Desert include oil, natural gas, phosphates, and sulfur.[citation needed ]

Threats to the ecoregion include overgrazing by livestock and feral camels and goats, wildlife poaching, and damage to vegetation by off-road driving.

The conservation status of the desert is critical/endangered. In the UAE, the sand gazelle and Arabian oryx are threatened, and honey badgers, jackals, and striped hyaenas already extirpated.

Protected areas

4.37% of the ecoregion is in protected areas.

Saudi Arabia has established a system of reserves overseen by the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development (NCWCD).

Harrat al-Harrah Reserve (12,150 km²), established in 1987, is on the border with Jordan and Iraq, and protects a portion of the stony basaltic Harrat al-Sham desert. The reserve includes rough terrain of black basaltic boulders and extinct volcanic cones from the middle Miocene. It provides habitat to over 250 species of plants, 50 species of birds, and 22 mammal species.

'Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve (12,000 km²) is on the western edge of the Rub' al-Khali. Arabian oryx and sand gazelle were reintroduced to the reserve in 1995.

Ibex Reserve (200 km²) is south of Riyadh. It protects Nubian ibex and a reintroduced population of mountain gazelle.

Al-Tabayq Special Nature Reserve is in northern Saudi Arabia, and protects a population of Nubian ibex.

Protected areas in the United Arab Emirates include Al Houbara Protected Area (2492.0 km ²), Al Ghadha Protected Area (1087.51 km ²), Arabian Oryx Protected Area (5974.47 km ²), Ramlah Protected Area (544.44 km ²), and Al Beda'a Protected Area (417.0 km ²).

1. ^ "Arabian Desert and East Sahero-Arabian xeric shrublands". Digital Observatory of Protected Areas. Accessed 19 December 2022. [1]

2. ^ "Arabian Desert". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund.

3. ^ "Arabian Desert | Facts, Definition, Temperature, Plants, Animals, & Map | Britannica". www.britannica.com.

4. ^ "Sharqiya (Wahiba) Sands, Oman - Travel Guide, Info & Bookings - Lonely Planet". Lonely Planet.

5. ^ Hoekstra JM, Molnar JL, Jennings M, Revenga C, Spalding MD, Boucher TM, Robertson JC, Heibel TJ, Ellison K (2010) The Atlas of Global Conservation: Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities to Make a Difference (ed. Molnar JL). Berkeley: University of California Press.

6. ^ Harrison, D. L. (1968). "Genus Acinonyx Brookes, 1828" (PDF). The mammals of Arabia. Volume II: Carnivora, Artiodactyla, Hyracoidea. London: Ernest Benn Limited. pp. 308-313.

7. ^ Heptner, V. G.; Sludskii, A. A. (1992) [1972]. "Lion". Mlekopitajuščie Sovetskogo Soiuza. Moskva: Vysšaia Škola [Mammals of the Soviet Union, Volume II, Part 2]. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution and the National Science Foundation. pp. 83-95. ISBN 978-90-04-08876-4.

8. ^ "هيئة تطوير مدينة الرياض توافق على طلبات مطورين لإنشاء 4 مشاريع سياحية وترفيهية" (in Arabic). April 4, 2019. Archived from the original on April 4, 2019.

9. ^ UNEP-WCMC (2020). Protected Area Profile for United Arab Emirates from the World Database of Protected Areas, November 2020. Available at: www.protectedplanet.net

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The Arabian Desert ( Arabic: ٱلصَّحْرَاء ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة) is a vast desert wilderness in West Asia that occupies almost the entire Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers (900,000 sq mi). It stretches from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq.

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Agricultural
Desert farming is the farming of crops that are well suited for dry conditions.
Crops:

Beets

Broccoli

Cabbage

Lettuce

Onion

Pea

Potato

Radish

Spinach

Turnips

For example: In California there is desert farming.

By Shading Windows with Overhangs, Most of the Direct Solar Gain Is Blocked. "When the Problem Is Heat." GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2016.

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The truth about California's water, fisheries, the delta and desert farming: We have to do a better job spreading the word...

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The best time to be in a desert is in the spring or fall so it's not too hot, or too cold. Car problems are quite common in deserts because things tend to overheat.
For example: In Phoenix, Arizona temperatures vary between 95 degrees Fahrenheit and 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

By Shading Windows with Overhangs, Most of the Direct Solar Gain Is Blocked. "When the Problem Is Heat." GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2016.

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DESERT versus DEVELOPMENT: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
by Connor Cox
Suburban sprawl is unwise, particularly when it destroys a desert. Phoenix, USA epitomizes this form of development. Lying in a vast valley in Arizona's Sonoran desert, the city experienced exponential growth during the latter half of the 20th century. The unchecked growth fueled a booming local economy for several decades, but it also created many unintended social and environmental consequences in its sensitive desert environment. The city's unprecedented suburban bulge frames a current urban development debate: should outward urban growth have a limit?

For several decades, it appeared that the outward growth of Phoenix had no limit. The city's urban land area grew from 17 square miles (44 square km) in 1950 to 475 square miles (1,230 square km) in 2010. During the same time period, the city's population bulged from 105,818 to 1,445,632 (U.S. Census Bureau). The majority of this rapid urbanization came in the form of low-density, suburban development. Cheap land prices on the city's fringe incentivized developers to build monotonous but lucrative subdivisions with standard houses and standard non-native grass lawns.

From 1950 to 1970, while the city's population grew 300%, its urbanized land area grew an alarming rate of 630%. Growth did not stop there. From 1990-2000, the Phoenix metropolitan area grew by 3.25 million people (U.S. Census Bureau). Most new developments displayed undesirable characteristics including segregated land uses, commercial strip development, low-density residential developments, and scattered, isolated developments that "leapfrogged" over the fragile desert landscape.
The juxtaposition of the built environment and natural environment. Photo by Ethan Miller
Phoenix was notorious for employing an aggressive annexation policy in the decades following the Second World War. This allowed the city to substantially expand its boundaries and greatly increase its revenue from property and sales taxes (Heim, 2011). But this era of expansion also produced many unintended social and environmental consequences. Rapid suburbanization has been blamed for severe reduction and fragmentation of desert and agricultural land, auto dependency, traffic congestion, air and water pollution, excess energy and water use, an increased urban heat island effect, increased carbon dioxide emissions, inner-city neglect and a declining sense of community. Developers were able to build new subdivisions at artificially low costs, both in economic and environmental terms, due to the subsidization of infrastructures from the state and federal governments. New roads, sidewalks, sewage, fire hydrants, telecommunications and water infrastructures stretched further and further to accommodate the suburban expansion. As a result of these subsidies, developers and citizens saw no reason to manage the growth and the sea of sprawl continued to spill into the disappearing desert. The subsidization of water is particularly influential in Phoenix, as the desert climate is extremely dry and only receives twenty centimeters of precipitation annually (Keys et al.).
Suburban homes encroach the desert. Photo by Margaret Hall
Arizona is one of seven U.S. states that depend on water diversions from the Colorado River to meet its drinking and agricultural water demands. The rights to the river's water allocation have prompted legal clashes between these states. Despite this vital natural resource limitation, Phoenix continues to grow, albeit more slowly, and water scarcity becomes an ever more contentious issue. The environmental and social consequences of Phoenix's suburban sprawl have framed an urban development policy issue that is critical to address. However, harnessing urban development and implementing coordinated land-use programs that restrict where and how people live is a delicate proposition. Nevertheless, planners and city officials have begun to take steps to ameliorate the urban development deficiences of the last half-century. The city has promoted in-fill development, downtown revitalization projects, upzoning, alternative transportation options, transit-oriented developments, mixed-use zoning and other 'New Urbanist' strategies. These initiatives are helping Phoenix move in a more sustainable direction, but the problems inherited from the last half century are proving to be difficult to mitigate.

After sixty years of boom, the Phoenix real estate market suddenly went bust as a result of the 2008 housing market crash. According to the Sonoran Institute, up to 1 million property lots in central Arizona were in some stage of approval for new homes when the market crashed. Some predicted that the housing market crash would become a cure for sprawl and catalyze a transformation of more sustainable development patterns. That may be partially true. However, as the U.S. economy slowly ascends, new home construction in Phoenix is hailed as a sign of resilience, progress and economic recovery. New homes are beginning to spring up across the desert valley, and the tug-of-war between the economy and the environment exacerbates.
Defunct sewage infrastructure in a stalled development in suburban Phoenix. Photo by Peter O'Dowd Cover photos by Joe Frasca. For more articles by Connor Cox, click on his name. For more articles of the same issue: Cities+Limits References:
Heim, C. (2011) Border Wars: Tax Revenues, Annexation, and Urban Growth in Phoenix, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Volume 36, Issue 4, pages 831-859
Keys, E., Wentz, E., Redman, C. (2007) The Spatial Structure of Land Use from 1970-2000 in the Phoenix, Arizona, Metropolitan Area The Professional Geographer, 59(1) pages 131-147
The Sonoran Institute
http://www.sonoraninstitute.org/
United States Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/
If the city's sea of sprawl does not quickly reach a limit, Phoenix will face more serious, unforecasted consequences in the future. Let's hope the mistakes of the last century will be used as lessons for the current century. To ensure that, planners, developers, architects and citizens need to collectively envision a new way of living in the Sonoran desert. A way that promotes density over sprawl, community over segregation, heterogeneity over homogeneity, mixed-use zoning over Euclidean zoning, diversity over monotony, and transit accessibility over auto dependency.

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DESERT versus DEVELOPMENT: Phoenix, Arizona, USA

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by Connor Cox in Cities+Limits Suburban sprawl is unwise, particularly when it destroys a desert. Phoenix, USA epitomizes this form of development. Lying in a vast valley in Arizona's Sonoran desert, the city experienced exponential growth during the latter half of the 20th century.

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Deserts affect settlement because deserts are really dry from lack of precipitation. Sometimes there can be a shortage of water.
For example: The Atacama Desert, (the driest desert in the world) has periods of up to four years without water.

"Deserts." WorldWildlife.org. World Wildlife Fund, n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2016.

Atacama desert: