Is Your Garden in an Arid Region?

Essentially, desert areas are those that receive less than 10 inches (250 ml) of annual precipitation while arid regions are defined as regions receiving between 10 and 20 inches (250 -500 ml) per year.

Scrub grass dominates the area. These regions (defined as steppes in Asia) are transitional areas between deserts and areas that are more humid.

The land in arid regions is less suited for agriculture than areas that are more humid too. Soil tends to be fairly sterile and lacking in both microbial life and larger creatures, like earthworms and arthropods.

In the United States, arid regions are defined as the western parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Central and West Texas, most of New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, northeastern California, and eastern Oregon and Washington.

In Canada, arid areas include southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, southeastern Manitoba and parts of British Columbia.

In other parts of the world, more arid regions abound, including much of Australia, the Sertao in Brazil, the Steppe in Kazakhstan, the southern edge of the Sahara, called the Sahel, Southern Africa (Kalahari, Karoo, the interiors of South Africa and Botswana, and the edge of the Namib Desert.

Other arid regions include parts of Spain (the provinces of Alicante and Almeria, both on the Mediterranean).

In many arid areas, decreasing amounts of rainfall, overgrazing, the introduction of invasive non-native vegetation and poor soil conservation practices have led to desertification of many areas, and the differences between ‚”arid” areas, and desert regions have blurred. Additional factors include substantial population increases, aquifer depletion, surface water pollution, deforestation, bad irrigation practices, erosion, globalization, bad technology, disappearance of wildlife habitat, and regional climate changes, not to mention poverty and political instability have exacerbated the situation. In fact, many areas in North America and elsewhere, once considered ‚”arid,” are now indistinguishable from actual deserts.

Pinion and juniper scrub have replaced short-grass steppes, as arid and semi-arid areas become less and less able to sustain animals and humans, further leading to desertification of areas.

Drought, although a significant factor, is usually secondary to land and habitat degradation. Regions where the land is well-managed, good soil and water conservation practices and other good agricultural practices can withstand prolonged periods of drought.

A good analogy would be a human being whose immune system has been weakened for some reason becomes more susceptible to other infections from which a well person could easily have withstood and recovered.