Desert Ecosystem

This ecosystem comprises the eastern three quarters of the country and is continues with the Arabian Desert of Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It is a gently undulating plateau with an elevation of 500 to 900 m. Four broad habitats –types can be distinguished in these ecosystem:

-Hammada; smooth, gravel/chert plains, which stretches from Ras An-Naqab to the Iraqi border in the north-east.

-Harrat; black boulder-fields of basalt rocks, which extends from south Syria, through north-east Jordan, and onwards into Saudi Arabia.

-Extensive sand dune desert that occurs in the southernmost part of the country such as Wadi Rum and Wadi Araba areas.

-Clay pans lying at the bottom of closed drainage basins in the desert can become flooded after heavy rains, with the water persisting for several months rather than draining away. The best known such areas are Qa’ al Azraq and Qa’ Al Jafer , very occasionally forming a huge temporary lakes.

This largely treeless ecosystem is dominated on its fringe, adjoining the Highlands ecosystem by Irano Turanian species of small shrub and bush such as Artemisia, Retama, Anabasis and Ziziphus. The majority of the ecosystem to the east of this highland fringe, has even poorer plant cover dominated by Artemisia, Phlomis, Stipa, Astragalusand Trigonella. Deserts in Jordan are mainly defined as Badia.

The Badia is the main range-land of Jordan. But the range quality is deteriorating due to very heavy grazing and widespread of ploughing for rainfed cultivation barley, which has led to loss of plant cover and accelerated soil erosion and degradation through wind.