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The flagship species of the Sahelian Acacia Savanna ecoregion is the African spurred tortoise. Image credit: Creative Commons. The ecoregion stretches across Africa from northern Senegal and Mauritania on the Atlantic coast to Sudan and Eritrea on the Red Sea. Commonly referred to as the ‘Sahel’—this ecoregion comprises a grassland ...
May 31, 2023 · The Sahel region ( / səˈhɛl /; from Arabic ساحل (sāḥil [ ˈsaːħil]) 'coast, shore') or Sahelian acacia savanna is a biogeographical region in Africa. It is the transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a hot semi-arid climate and stretches across the ...
- Geography
- Flora and Fauna
- Climate
- Culture
- Etymology
- History
- Recent Droughts
- Desertification and Soil Loss
- Instability and Violence
- Protected Areas
The Sahel spans 5900-1NaN-1 from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Seain the east, in a belt several hundred to a thousand kilometers (c. 600 miles) wide. It covers an area of 3053200-1NaN-1. Representing a climatic and ecological transition zone with hot steppe conditions, the Sahel region borders the more humid Sudanian savannas to its so...
The Sahel is mostly covered in grassland and savanna, with areas of woodland and shrubland. Grass cover is fairly continuous across the region, dominated by annual grass species such as Cenchrus biflorus, Schoenefeldia gracilis and Aristida stipoides. Species of acacia are the dominant trees, with Acacia tortilis the most common, along with Acacia ...
The Sahel has a tropical semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh). The climate is typically hot, sunny, dry and somewhat windy all year long. The Sahel's climate is similar to, but less extreme than, the climate of the Sahara desertlocated just to the north. The Sahel mainly receives a low to very low amount of precipitation annually. ...
Traditionally, most of the people in the Sahel have been semi-nomads, farming and raising livestock in a system of transhumance. The difference between the dry North with higher levels of soil nutrients and the wetter South with more vegetation, is utilized by having the herds graze on high-quality feed in the North during the wet season, and trek ...
The term "Sahel" is borrowed from the Arabic name for the region, Arabic: الساحل . literally means "coast, shore", which has been explained as a figurative reference to the southern edge of the vast Sahara. However, such use is unattested in Classical Arabic, and it has been suggested that the word may originally have been derived from the Arabic w...
Early agriculture
Around 4000 BC, the climate of the Sahara and the Sahel started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace. This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and caused migrations of farming communities to the more humid climate of West Africa.
Sahelian kingdoms
See main article: Sahelian kingdoms. The Sahelian kingdoms were a series of monarchies centered in the Sahel between the 9th and 18th centuries. The wealth of the states, like the legendary Mali Empire at the time of Mansa Musa, came from controlling the trans-Saharan trade routes across the desert, especially with the Maghreb. Their power came from having large pack animals like camels and horses that were fast enough to keep a large empire under central control and were also useful in battl...
Colonial period
The Western Sahel fell to France in the late 19th century as part of French West Africa. Chad was added in 1900 as part of French Equatorial Africa. The French territories in the Sahel were decolonizedin 1960. The Sahel's easternmost region did not fall to the European powers but to the Khedivate of Egypt when it was conquered by Muhammad Ali in the 1820s. By 1899 it came under British rule until granted independenceat Egypt's behest in 1956.
For hundreds of years, the Sahel region has experienced frequent droughts and megadroughts. One megadrought lasted from 1450 to 1700, 250 years. There was a major drought in the Sahel in 1914 caused by annual rains far below average, leading to large-scale famine. From 1951 to 2004, the Sahel experienced some of the most consistent and severe droug...
The Sahel region faces environmental issues that are contributing to global warming. If the change in climate in the Sahel region "is not slowed-down and desertification possibly reversed through sustainable practices and any form of reforestation, it is only a matter of time before" countries like Niger lose their entire landmass to desert due to ...
In the wake of the Libyan Crisis, terrorist organizations operating in the Sahel, including Boko Haram, Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), have greatly exacerbated the violence, extremism and instability of the region. In March 2020, the United States sent a special envoy for the Sahel region to combat the rising violence fro...
Protected areas in the Sahel include Ferlo Nord Wildlife Reserve in Senegal, Sylvo-Pastoral and Partial Faunal Reserve of the Sahel in Burkina Faso, Ansonga-Ménake Faunal Reserve in Mali, Tadres Reserve in Niger, and Waza National Parkin Cameroon.
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Getty Images. In countries that span the Sahel, acacia trees – the source of gum arabic – thrive (Credit: Getty Images) For millennia, the gum of the acacia tree has been prized for its ...
The umbrella shaped Acacia tree is a notable species of the Savanna biome. The acacia tree uses its long tap roots draw water from deep below the surface during the dry season of the savanna. The tree's long thorns are home to small stinging ants, both of which ward off herbivorous animals. Only the giraffe can tolerate the acacia foliage.
The Sahelian Acacia Savanna stretches across Africa from northern Senegal and Mauritania on the Atlantic coast to Sudan on the Red Sea, varying in width from several hundred to over a thousand kilometers (km). The word "sahel" means shore in Arabic and refers to the transition zone between the wooded savannas of the south and the true Sahara ...
Jul 1, 2020 · Restoring savannas and tropical herbaceous ecosystems. PDF 07-24-2020. When people think of savannas, they think of the vast African landscapes where elephants, wildebeest, giraffes or lions used to roam. With the seasons, the vegetation – tall grasses more or less scattered with trees and shrubs – changes from green to yellow.
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