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May 23, 2024 · The name Sahara derives from the Arabic noun ṣaḥrāʾ, meaning desert, and its plural, ṣaḥārāʾ. It is also related to the adjective aṣḥar , meaning desertlike and carrying a strong connotation of the reddish colour of the vegetationless plains.
The Sahel or Sahel Belt (from Arabic ساحل, sāḥil, shore, border or coast of the Sahara) is a semi-arid tropical savanna ecoregion in Africa, which forms the transitional zone between the Sahara Desert to the north and the more humid savanna belt to the south known as the Sudan (not to be confused with the country of the same name).
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Aug 16, 2021 · The Sahel acts like a buffer or transition zone between the Sahara Desert to the north and the fertile savannahs to the south. The Sahel was once home to several indigenous African kingdoms. The Sahel literally means "edge" or "border" in Arabic.
- What’s in a name? The word ‘Sahel’ comes from the Arabic word sāḥil which means coast or shore. It refers to the Sahelian border with the Sahara where plants and shrubs start to grow and take root, forming a desert “shoreline” of sorts.
- Its reach is vast. The Sahel is big. Like, really big. Like, longer than the entire United States big at over 5,400 kilometers (3,350 miles) stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and touching over a dozen countries including The Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.
- A unique biosphere. The Sahel is classified as a tropical hot steppe or semi-desert shrubland. The weather is typically hot, sunny, and windy with irregular rainfall at times.
- Distinct wildlife. Besides the populations of reptiles, insects, and birds that inhabit the region, the area was once home to large groups of mammals.
The Sahel is a transition zone between the pure desert of Sahara and the woody savanna of the Sudanean zone further south. It is a very fragile ecosystem where the signals of climate change and climate variability have been most apparent, with unprecedented climate variability over the last four decades (Hiernaux et al., 2009 ; Kaptué ...
- Cheikh Mbow
- 2017
Nov 28, 2019 · The African Sahel region (Sahel in Arabic means shore, border, or coast) forms the transitional zone between Northern African Sahara to the north and the humid Savanna to the south (OECD 2014). It is an arid/semiarid tropical savanna ecoregion (Fig. 1.1 ), which stretches almost 5500 km across the south-central latitudes of North Africa between ...
The Sahel forms a transitional zone between the arid Sahara (desert) to the north and the more fertile belt of humid savannas to the south. The Sahel is semiarid steppe, a type of dry grassland . It has low-growing grass, thorny shrubs, and scattered acacia and baobab trees.
