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General information
Basic Sciene of Cold Deserts @ Brittanica
Common Desert Plants @ DesertUSA
Desert Biome @ UCMP
Simple Science Behind Desert Climates @ BBC
Finding Water in the Desert @ PERC
Where an Oasis Gets Water @ GeoLounge
Where Animals Get Water in the Desert @ Smithsonian
Periodicals
Arid Lands Newsletter [to 2008]
Institutions ~ International organizations
Institutions ~ Research
Desert Research Institute (DRI)
Courses
Animals at the Extremes: The desert environment
• A free course examining species that live in harsh desert habitats.
Cold Deserts
Cold Desert Basic Information @ UC Berkeley
Cold Desert Animals @ Sciencing
Utah's Cold Desert @ Utah Science
Deserts by geography
North America
Africa
Middle East
Asia
Sarah Grado and Kaitlin Cavallo of Brandeis University developed this page in 2019 and 2018 respectively.
Deserts “cover about one fifth of the Earth's surface and are defined to occur where rainfall is less than 50
centimeters per year.”*
Be sure to distinguish between deserts on the one hand and desertification on the other; the former is an
ecotype, one celebrated in many cultures, while the latter is a process, one the world is working hard
to avoid. Information on desertification can be found at the Land degradation & desertification page.
This page focuses on general desert information followed by a short inchoate section on deserts by region
(which will eventually be expanded).