What is a Coastal Desert?
- A desert with hospitable temperatures.
- The desert is very dry, and some get very rare rainfall.
- Crescent shaped dunes are likely to be found on a coastal desert.
Geographic Location
- Coastal deserts are normally located on the west coasts of continents.
- You can find coastal deserts in North America, South America, Africa, and Asia.
- These deserts also have beaches because they are near large bodies of water.
Climate
- These deserts have cool winters and long, warm summers. A good example of this is Chile.
- Summer temperatures range from 13-24 degrees celsius (55-75 degrees fahrenheit), and winter temperatures are 5 degrees celsius and below (41 degrees fahrenheit).
Primary Vegetation Type
- The primary producers in the food web are mostly plants.
- Things like cacti, bushes, and flowers are eaten by insects and small animals.
Characteristic Food Web
- The primary producers are eaten by insects and rodents.
- After this, bigger animals eat the smaller one including snakes, lizards and big spiders.
- At the top of the food web are the hawks and the foxes.
Human Related Threats
- Some of the big human-related threats to the coastal deserts are military activities and off-road vehicles. This causes damage to the desert cover.
- Mining is also a threat although it does not focus on that much area, it hurts a lot of the desert surrounding it.
- These activities cause damage to the desert cover.