Talk:Sahara desert (ecoregion)

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This cannot possibly be correctly placed at Sahara desert.

Either it is a place called called the Sahara, which happens to be a desert, in which case it goes here at Sahara. Or else its name is the Sahara Desert, in which case it should be at Sahara Desert. Tannin

I would prefer to stick with the names of the ecoregion defined by National Geographic. As I edited it, this article is not about the Sahara (the entity refering to Sahara in most people minds), but about part of the Sahara which is desertic. Which is quite different. I will upload the map corresponding to this ecoregion this evening if you want. But in any case, this article is about an ecoregion, not about the Sahara global entity. But this article cannot and should not stay at Sahara as it is only defining part of it. If we keep this general name, people could add some stuff that have nothing to do with the ecoregion, making the article null and irrelevant. I am also planning to write to NG to try to make a deal with them, at least for map use. If the article naming scheme is messed up, that is not even interesting that I try to do so.

Perhaps we should then have an article about Sahara and another about Sahara Desert ?

I must mention that when I started the naming scheme for soils and biomes, I was told it was forbidden to use capital letters on the second word. And my article was renamed with a non-capital letter. Don't remember which one it was though. Anthère

I'm not surprised, Anthea. There are three sorts of people here: (a) Ones Who Capitalise Absolutely Everything For No Good Reason And Are Functionally Illiterate. (b) ones who think that capital letters are like masturbation - they make your teeth turn green and your eyes go all funny and they should never be used under any circumstances. these people are also functionally illiterate and probably think that a semi-colon is something to do with abdominal surgery. (c) People who care enough about language to use it correctly. You and I, being nice people at heart (even if we do get a bit grumpy sometimes) fall into that third group, of course. I was going to go thrHIough and remove all the illiterate links to (get this one!) the Atlantic ocean a couple of hours ago, and even (believe it or not) the Red sea but then the Wiki server decided to hang its head in shame and go off into na-na land for a while and I got distracted.

You know me: short attention span. Wikilove. -- Tony

PS: Speaking of short attention spans, I only read your last para - didn't realise that the paras above were yous too. Should I move this to Sahara Desert then? Or will you?

Oh, be careful Tony, I think you rather liked the person would insisted on the capitalization matter ;-)

Red sea indeed :-)))

Your comment at the top of the page gave me to think. It would probably be interesting in the long term that we have two articles. Since it is rather short right now, perhaps does it not make sense ... I let you to decide whether we should have one or two. If we only have one, please let us put it at Sahara Desert. Btw, I am trying to plan to go there for christmas (south of Algeria, frontier with Mali). If this plan is successful, I will try to bring back a bunch of nice gfdl pict that should improve this article greatly. Wikilove too. On these always peaceful wikipedia topics :-) Anthère

The word Sahara means 'desert'. If you say 'Sahara Desert', it would mean the 'Desert Desert'. The article about the desert should be titled 'Sahara'. GUllman

If you want to write anything about the Sahara, please do so in Sahara. This article is not about the desert itself. Consider it a Name please. Anthère

To suppress all temptations to diverge from its subject, this article could be renamed as [Sahara Desert ecoregion]. I don't know if that's the standard Wikipedia practice for similar names, but for people (like me) who have nearly never heard of ecoregions, it makes things much clearer. --FvdP 21:04, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I would not object to Sahara Desert (ecoregion). But, I already made the list of half of the about 800 ecoregions, and I do not feel like renaming all or them without a good reason. In fact, the one that does not feel happy with the naming scheme is welcome to rename all of them by hand. I would appreciate that the current name is used as a redirection if possible. Anthère

Hmm, I guess it's time for me to create an EcoBot ;-) --FvdP 23:48, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What does the opening sentence mean ?

I do not understand the opening sentence of this article:

>The Sahara was one of Africa to be farmed.

It was one what ?

Scorpions and sleeping outside in the desert

I don't agree that sleeping outside in the desert is not really safe for the presence of scorpions. Many people sleep outside, also tourists. One of the great things of being in the desert is sleeping outside and looking at the (falling) stars. The only point is to take care that bags are closed, shoes should be verified in the morning and the sleeping bag should be only unfolded just before going to sleep. There are also snakes and jackals by the way... I think this warning is exagerated and should be modified.--User:AAM | Talk 15:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Pigs helping cause Sahara desert

There used to information here referencing the theory that overgrazing, primarily by pigs, helped cause the desertification of the Sahara, however that information was removed from this section in July without discussion here. The Late Neolithic section of Predynastic Egypt still points here in reference to that theory. So, should mention of that theory be added back to this section (with references) and any contradictions in other articles cleaned up, or should the reference be removed from the Predynastic Egypt section? I would guess that the answer depends on whether the theory can be justified. Anyone want to tackle this one? -- 70.20.151.239 12:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wording of appearance section?

The last part of the Appearance section sounds more like a travel guide than an encyclopedia. Specifically, the last two sentences use subjective language that doesn't strike me as appropriate for Wikipedia. I think this should be changed, but what would be the best way to go about it? I'm fairly new to this editing business. Viridian Moon 22:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Is South Sahara desert the same as the Sahara desert ecoregion?

@Tom Radulovich: Do you have a reference to support renaming Sahara desert (ecoregion) as South Sahara desert? There is no unique definition of ecoregions (e.g., WWF vs. EPA/Omernik in the United States). If the WWF redefined the Sahara desert ecoregion, then we shouldn't move the article, but create a new one, because they would be two different ecoregions. — hike395 (talk) 02:13, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

In 2017 WWF revised the names and boundaries of the ecoregions in the Sahero-Arabian deserts, along with Antarctica and some east African ecoregions (Southern miombo woodlands, Zanzibar-Inhambane forest-savanna mosaic, etc.). Here's the reference:

Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/bix014

If you download the supporting materials, there's a spreadsheet (SM 1 Table 114Mar17) that summarizes all the changes from the 2001 version, and citations for the papers they used to make the revisions.

And here's their new interactive map: https://ecoregions2017.appspot.com

The Sahara Desert (ecoregion) article refers to a WWF-designated ecoregion in the hyper-arid center, not to the Sahara Desert as broadly understood, which includes several WWF ecoregions. In the 2017 revision, WWF split their Sahara Desert ecoregion into three - East Sahara desert, South Sahara desert, and West Sahara desert. Since the South Sahara desert corresponds most closely to the old Sahara desert ecoregion, I thought I'd repurpose and revise the article, since WWF isn't using the old ecoregion definition any more.Tom Radulovich (talk) 03:06, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tom Radulovich: Thanks. As far as I know, that paper is not a product of the WWF. Take a look at the authorship affiliations on pages 544-545 of the PDF version of the paper. None of the authors work for the WWF: plenty of non-profits, universities, and even Google. The South Sahara ecoregion as defined by that paper seems like a notable topic for an article, but that would be a separate article from Sahara Desert (ecoregion). The latter ecoregion is just as valid as the former, since the definition of ecoregions change according to the purpose of the bioregionalization.

Since ~2004 (when you wrote many of the WWF ecoregion articles, thanks for that!), I think WP has come to a consensus about how to handle conflicting ecoregion definitions. For example, compare List of ecoregions in the United States (EPA) to List of ecoregions in the United States (WWF). When the two different systems define an ecoregion in almost the same way, we write a single article (e.g., Sierra Nevada forests and Sierra Nevada (ecoregion)). If the two systems define ecoregions that don't substantially overlap (e.g., Snake River Plain (ecoregion) vs. Snake–Columbia shrub steppe), we just write two articles that refer to each other. I believe that, for this article, we have two different ecoregions.

I propose moving this article back to Sahara Desert (ecoregion), and you can start a new article on South Sahara desert. Does that sound good? — hike395 (talk) 04:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

That sounds fine. The ecoregion content on the WWF site is pretty crufty, so it may be some time before they have integrated revisions from the 2017 work. In reading through the 2017 paper and the references it cites, the South Saharan steppe and woodlands gets retired, and expanded significantly into the 2001 Sahara desert ecoregion. I added a section to this article on Ecoregion delineation explaining the differences. When WWF decides to update their online stuff we can decide how to fold them together. In the meantime I'll redirect South Sahara desert to South Saharan steppe and woodlands, and add the a similar delineation section to that article to explain the older and newer schemes.Tom Radulovich (talk) 19:24, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Moved material about Sahara soil nutrients

I moved material added by an IP editor to Desert farming, where it seems more appropriate. — hike395 (talk) 06:33, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I found the same irrelevant material on several articles, so this is likely WP:CoI/WP:SPAM. I've removed it entirely from WP. — hike395 (talk) 09:38, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Sahara area

It is 8.6 million sq km (Encyclopedia Britannica) or 9.2 million sq km. (another source) YMVD (talk) 00:03, 9 July 2023 (UTC)