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Mauritania
Index
Figure 4. Topography and Drainage
Mauritania is generally flat, its 1,030,700 square kilometers
forming vast, arid plains broken by occasional ridges and
clifflike outcroppings. A series of scarps face southwest,
longitudinally bisecting these plains in the center of the
country. The scarps also separate a series of sandstone plateaus,
the highest of which is the Adrar Plateau, reaching an elevation
of 500 meters. Spring-fed oases lie at the foot of some of the
scarps. Isolated peaks, often rich in minerals, rise above the
plateaus; the smaller peaks are called guelbs and the
larger ones kedias. The concentric Guelb er Richat is a
prominent feature of the north-central region. Kediet Ijill, near
the city of Zouîrât, has an elevation of 1,000 meters and is the
highest peak
(see
fig. 4).
Approximately three-fourths of Mauritania is desert or
semidesert. As a result of extended, severe drought, the desert
has been expanding since the mid-1960s. The plateaus gradually
descend toward the northeast to the barren El Djouf, or "Empty
Quarter," a vast region of large sand dunes that merges into the
Sahara Desert. To the west, between the ocean and the plateaus,
are alternating areas of clayey plains (regs) and sand
dunes (ergs), some of which shift from place to place,
gradually moved by high winds. The dunes generally increase in
size and mobility toward the north.
The climate is characterized by extremes in temperature and
by meager and irregular rainfall. Annual temperature variations
are small, although diurnal variations can be extreme. The
harmattan, a hot dry wind, blows from the Sahara throughout most
of the year and is the prevailing wind, except along the narrow
coastal strip, which is influenced by oceanic trade winds. During
the short rainy season (hivernage), from July to
September, average annual precipitation varies from 500 to 600
millimeters in the far south to 0 to 100 millimeters in the
northern two-thirds of the country. Belts of natural vegetation,
corresponding to the rainfall pattern, extend from east to west
and range from traces of tropical forest along the Senegal River
to brush and savanna in the southeast. Only sandy desert is found
in the center and north of the country.
Data as of June 1988
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