Extreme climates 2

The Eucalypt tree

• Low nutrient needs (can tolerate poor soils)
• The bark is thick to avoid heat damage
• Leaves are small, reduces transpiration
• Long roots, which do not rot easily deep in the soil

The Bilby

• Nocturnal, thus avoids daytime heat and dehydration
• It burrows for cooler conditions underground
• It has low moisture needs and gets most moisture from it's food

The Red Kangaroo

• It hops which is energy efficient and fast
• It feeds at dawn and dusk when the temperature is cooler
• Breeding only occurs during rains, as a hormone is triggered

Succulence

• They store water in their fleshy leaves/stems/roots
• They can absorb large amounts of water at a time to store
• Some succulents have spikes to deter animals 

Drought Tolerance

• These plants have deep root systems
• During drought they shed their leaves and become dormant 

Drought Avoidance

• Their seeds last for years and only germinate when the soil moisture is high
• Most only survive one season

Underground sources of water

• Water can be obtained from an aquifer, a porous layer of rock that holds water like a sponge
• Rain soaks into the soil and percolates the rock

Storing and transferring water

• 1950s 'Snowy Mountain Scheme'
• Water stored in reservoirs
• Taken to farms for irrigation water

Living Underground

• Temperature underground is much cooler than above, and stays constant
• Coober Pedy, outback temperatures can reach 50 degrees
• The people live in dugouts, houses cut into the rock
• The people do activities at night time to avoid the intense midday sun

Natural Causes

• High temperatures and low rainfall
• Natural oils in native eucalypt trees, which fuel fire easily
• Major drought

Human Causes

• Cigarettes/deliberate light blazes
• Power lines falling
• 50 year warming trend that has been linked to human caused climate change

Black Saturday

Victoria, Australia, 07/02/2009

• Water sources contaminated with ash
• Smoke discovered in atmosphere
• 78 towns destroyed
• 173 deaths
• over 400 injured
• Agricultural loses
• 41% houses destroyed
• over 11000 livestock killed

Lessons learned- "stay and defend or leave early" policy reviewed

New building regulations and high risk area housing banned.

Causes

• Natural causes of drought are changes in the weather patterns
• (changes in the rainy season)
• El Nino, Australia, 50% chance of the weather being dry

El nino- warm winds are blown to South America, therefore more precipitation occurs here, and less in Australia.

• Humans can make drought worse by
• Population Growth
• Over Cultivation
• Overgrazing
• De-forestation 

Living

The water need of people cannot be met due to lack of rain over a large period of time

Impacts of drought:

• Loss of income due to failure of crops
• bushes/shrubs/crops have a lack of water and will die
• The loss of vegetation can result in increased soil erosion
• severe bush fires and storms are more likely
• Lack of water
• Loss of local communities as people move to the cities (especially farmers whose crops have failed)

Coping

Intermediate Technology- technology that can be done with little knowledge, the materials exist locally and the labour is free. It is a cheap solution.

Case study- Diguettes in Siguin Vousse

• A small village in Burkina Faso (the Sahel region)
• project "agro-forestier" to prevent soil erosion and retain rain water
• Local farmers were encouraged to build diguettes; stones that trap soil, and soil builds up behind them
• soil erosion reduced, soil depth increased by 18cm, whereas before it decreased by 15cm

Australia

• Planting native vegetation/gm/drought resistant crops e.g Eucalypt
• Store flood water for irrigation, rain water, grey water

Adapting

Conservation Farming- aims to conserve soil, providing a sustainable livelihood.

• Ploughing only where you need to, in order to reduce soil erosion and keep fertility.
• Mixing several crops on one piece of land so that if one fails, others might survive
• Planting in basins, so that rain trickles into the basins, making it easier for the plants to getmoisture from the soil.

Crops can increase by 10x

Actions to reduce drought-

Kyoto Summit

181 countries agreement, MEDC's targets set regarding GHGs

The culture

• The aboriginal peoples are some of the world's longest established communities (indigenous)
• The first aboriginal people came to Uluru
• They teach a sustainable lifestyle/eat sustainably
• Used herbs and shrubs as natural remedies

Tourism

Tourists bring economical benefits when they buy paintings and crafts but they also

• the culture can be exploited to provide entertainment, rather than inform and express the culture
•  Tourists can leave without learning anything, they often just come for the experience of climbing Uluru with is against it's beliefs and disrespectful to the culture
• If people are not educated properly, stereotypical views can form about the culture.