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A desert is not always a flat, unchanging wasteland of dry sand. It may have mountains and hills. It may have an oasis, big or small. An oasis is like a green island in the middle of a desert where a spring or a well gives plants and trees a better chance to grow. A desert may be hot like the Thar or cold like Ladakh. But, generally speaking, if a place has little or no water and vegetation, people usually call it a desert.
Explanation:
As some people think, deserts are not always barren place filled with dry sand that would be unfit for any living organism to live. Instead, some deserts contain natural features like mountains and strange shaped hills and rocks.
Desert rocks, mountains and animals
Living organisms could live a life in a desert if they can adapt to the hot climate. It's not true that a desert would be hot always. Leading a life is in deserts are possible for living organisms that can adapt to the harsh situations of the desert.
Desert plants and animals
Deserts will not always remain hot; it would be cold during the night as there is little water vapour in the air to trap the heat from the daytime; deserts are hot as there is no water, desert directly absorbs sunlight.
Desert landscape during night
Most of the deserts do have water resources in them. The location where water and human survival coexist in a desert is called an 'oasis.' An oasis can be large or small. An oasis is a water-rich region amidst a desert where springs or a well provide more opportunities for plants and trees to grow. It's a fertile region where the water table approaches the surface. This oasis supports vegetation.
Oasis
A desert may be hot, such as the Thar, or cold, such as Ladakh. The Thar Desert is the seventeenth-largest desert in the world and the ninth largest hot subtropical desert. It is also called as 'Great Indian Desert'. It is located partly in Rajasthan state in northwestern India and partly in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh (Sind) in eastern Pakistan. Ladakh is a cold desert on the eastern side of Jammu and Kashmir, located in the Great Himalayas.
Antarctica ice desert landscape
The world's highest desert is the 'Antarctic desert,' which occupies Antarctica and covers about \(5.5\) million square miles.
Penguins in ice desert landscape
People commonly refer to an area as a desert if it has little or no water or plants.
Meaning of difficult words:
S.No | Words | Meaning |
1. | Oasis | An area in the desert with water, where plants can grow |
2. | Adapt | To change something in order to survive in a new situation |
3. | Amidst | In the middle of something |
Reference:
National Council of Educational Research and Training (2006). Supplementary. The Desert (pp.15-18). Published at the Publication Division by the Secretary, National Council of Educational Research and Training, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi.
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