Lesson video

Hello and welcome.

My name is Mr. March, and I'm here today to talk to you about the opportunities and challenges presented in the Kalahari Desert.

So grab everything that you need for today's lesson and let's get going.

So by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to outline both the opportunities and challenges presented by the Kalahari Desert.

And we have four keywords for today.

Those are arid, Indigenous, mineral extraction, and tourism.

Now, arid refers to a climate with little to no rainfall, whereas Indigenous refers to the people or animals that originally lived and may continue to live in a particular country or region.

Mineral extraction refers to the process of removing valuable minerals from the earth.

And finally, tourism refers to the business of attracting and taking care of visitors to a place.

Now, we have three learning cycles and logically we're gonna start with the first learning cycle, which is the case study background to the Kalahari Desert.

Now, the first thing to say about the Kalahari Desert is that it is vast.

It stretches almost 900,000 kilometres squared and is in fact ranked as the eighth largest hot desert around the world.

In fact, it is roughly four times the size of the UK, just giving you an indication as to its vast size.

Now, where is the Kalahari Desert located? Well, we can see that the Kalahari Desert is located in Africa.

To look at it further, looking at our lines of latitude, we can see that the Kalahari Desert is located between the Tropic of Capricorn and 30 degrees south.

Looking closer, again, the continent of Africa, we can see that it's located at the southern tip of Africa, and looking closer furthermore, we can see that it's located to the southeast of the Namib Desert, roughly 50 to 100 kilometres away.

So zooming in closer on the Kalahari Desert, a few more things become apparent.

The first of which is that the Kalahari Desert is landlocked.

We can see that the Kalahari Desert is located hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres away from the ocean.

The second thing is that, due to its vast size, we can see that the Kalahari Desert stretches across three different nations, those being Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia, with the majority of the Kalahari being located in Botswana.

So my first learning check here for you, which three of the following accurately describe the location of the Kalahari Desert? What I'd like you to do is consider your answer and pause the video here.

Okay.

And the three correct answers you were looking for were B, located between the Tropic of Capricorn and 30 degrees south.

The second was C, the fact that it is landlocked, and the third one is E, mostly found in Botswana.

Really well done if you were able to get those three correct answers.

So now we can look at some aerial images of the Kalahari Desert, and studying this image in front of you, a few things become apparent.

The first of which that we can see are that there are sand dunes found in some of the drier parts of the Kalahari desert.

This really speaks volumes about the lack of precipitation that we find in some parts of the Kalahari.

Remember, for it to be classified as a hot desert, it must receive less than 250 millimetres of precipitation per year.

The second thing is though, that we can see some forms of vegetation in this image.

Therefore, in some parts of the Kalahari it does receive enough precipitation to support these live thorns.

The trees that you can see in front of you are known as camel thorn, sometimes known as giraffe thorn.

These plants, though, are thinly spread.

They're very much scattered, rather than covering the ground entirely.

Fourth and finally, the white dots on this image are actually goats.

Now, these goats may be wild, but more than likely, they are perhaps belonging to a local farmer.

So studying the two climate graphs, one on the left of Gochas, Namibia in the Kalahari Desert and the one on the right, London, UK, we can begin to get a sense of the climate in the Kalahari Desert.

Now, looking specifically at the climate graph on the left, we can see that there is a clear wet and dry season in Gochas.

We can see a clear drop in both rainfall and temperature in the months May to September.

And we can also see that if we calculate and add up all of the different rainfall values from January to December, we end up with an extremely low rainfall, under 250 millimetres a year, thereby classifying it as a desert.

And finally, we can see that the average temperatures in Gochas is significantly higher than that of London.

We can see that the average in January alone is 28 degrees, and the average in June alone is 12 degrees, whereas compare that to London, and the maximum value in July is roughly 18 degrees on average, and the lowest is in January at about 5 degrees.

So this gives you a sense, really, of the warm climate that we find in the Kalahari Desert.

Now, studying the climate graph closer of Gochas, it speaks volumes about the seasonality of both the temperature and precipitation there.

If we deal with the precipitation first, there's a clear wet and dry season.

The wet season seems to exist from about December until March, with a peak rainfall of about 48 millimetres, whereas the dry season seems to exist from about May to September, with June and August with no rainfall whatsoever.

And even in the months of May, July, and September, there seems to be very minimal rainfall there as well, approximately five millimetres for every month.

Turning our attention to the temperature, you can see just how high it gets in those months of December and January, roughly around 28 degrees on average.

So here is a learning check.

Which two of the following accurately describe the climate of Gochas? Read through the options, pause the video here, and I'll come back to you in a second.

So how did you do? Here are the correct answers.

The correct answers you're looking for were B, the fact that the maximum temperature in Gochas is 28 degrees Celsius, and D, that there is a wet and dry season, as exemplified by the climate graph on the screen in front of you.

Now, large areas of the Kalahari do in fact have less than 250 millimetres of rainfall per year, but some areas do receive more than that.

Biodiversity, as a result, I s relatively high for a hot desert, as the Kalahari actually supports over 320 different species of mammals and birds.

Now, just to give you an idea about some of these examples, we have Kalahari lions, meerkats, giraffes, and ostriches, as well as a huge variety of other plant and animal life.

Plants in the Kalahari are adapted to these arid conditions and to the low-nutrient sandy soils found there.

For example, those camel thorn trees you saw earlier in the lesson, they have taproots that can go 60 metres underground in order to find and exploit underground water reserves.

They also have very thick bark and small leaves to reduce water loss, and they have those sharp spikes for protection from potential predators.

Finally, devil's claw is another Kalahari plant.

It can lie dormant underground until rain arrives.

Then, the plant see sends out shoots on the surface, which then die back in dry conditions.

This is an example of an ephemeral plant, one which uses the limited amount of rainfall for a very short lifecycle.

A photo you can see in the image is of the San Indigenous people, who collect devil's claw for a range of different purposes.

Now, those San Indigenous people I mentioned just a moment ago, these are the Indigenous people who have been living in the Kalahari Desert for at least 20,000 years.

They're really experts at finding and conserving water.

In fact, they use ostrich eggs to store water and are skilled hunters and also extremely proficient in finding water sources.

They're known to make food from over 100 species of plants, and they're extremely skilled hunters, and they will kill and use any part of an animal to make sure that there's no wastage.

Unfortunately, though, despite their long history of living in the Kalahari, recently, their rights are increasingly under threat.

In the 1980s and '90s, due to mineral exploitation and other human activities, the Indigenous Sam people are unfortunately being forced off their ancestral home.

In 2002, they were forced off their Central Kalahari Game Reserve to make way for diamond mines.

Now, I have two practise tasks now for you.

The first of which is for you to describe the location of the Kalahari Desert.

Now, I'd like you to study the map that we looked at before, and I'd like you to try to include in your answer lines of latitude, continent, compass directions, neighbouring deserts, and scale.

The second practise task asks you about the San Indigenous people.

It says that the San people are skilled at living in the harsh conditions of the Kalahari Desert.

Now, I'd like you to add more examples around this image of the skills that they possess.

I've given you two examples to get you going.

The first of which says, the fact that the San people live in very small groups, so as not to put too much pressure on those limited resources in terms of food and water.

And the other one is the fact that the San people use devil's claw as a painkiller.

So what I'd like you to do right now is pause the video whilst you attempt both practise tasks.

Best of luck.

Okay, so here are the answers for practise task one.

You were asked to describe the location of the Kalahari Desert, and you could have said some of the following.

You could say that it was between the Tropic of Capricorn and 30 degrees south.

You could say that it is found in Southern Africa.

You could say that it's found in the southern hemisphere.

You could also say that it is found southeast of the Namib desert, which is roughly 600 kilometres away.

The second task asked you about the San people, and these are some of the answers that you could have included.

You could have mentioned how the San extract moisture from plant roots and tubers.

You can mention also how they store water in ostrich eggs.

You can also mention the fact that they are experts in finding water.

You could also make the point that they are experts in hunting and that they use every part of the animal they kill in order to avoid wastage.

And finally, could have said the fact that the San know how to make food from over the 100 species of plant.

Really, really well done if you mentioned any of those.

So time for our second learning cycle, which is about the development opportunities in the Kalahari Desert.

Now, the opportunities found in the Kalahari Desert include these four, which are mineral extraction, tourism, agricultural development, and renewable energy production.

The first learning check asks you to identify which one is not an opportunity for economic development in the Kalahari Desert.

So what I'd like you to do right now is pause the video whilst you make your answer.

And here's the correct answer.

The only one which is not an opportunity for economic development is forest logging, which makes perfect sense, given the lack of precipitation and ability for vegetation growth in the desert.

Really well done if you managed to get that correct.

So dealing first with mineral extraction, we need to understand that the Kalahari desert is actually very rich in different minerals such as magnesium, sulphur, uranium, copper, and high-value diamonds, which really offers opportunities for development.

How does this actually happen? Well, first of all, the minerals are mined, these can be sold around the world to international markets.

This money then is generated for Botswana and other countries around the Kalahari Desert.

This money then can be reinvested in Botswana's, or whoever's country's, social and economic development.

If we look specifically at uranium, actually in the Kalahari, it possesses 5% of global uranium.

Again, this uranium can be mined, sold, and the income generated can then be reinvested in their social and economic development.

Now, you might be wondering, why is uranium mined? Well, it is used in nuclear reactors.

It can be sold globally.

This money then can be generated through jobs and taxes for those local people.

And finally, that money then can be invested into national services such as education, healthcare, but also in the national infrastructure such as road and communications.

Tourism is an interesting example, particularly for Botswana.

Tourists visit, now, for example, in Botswana, safari tourism is a big, big growth industry, as people come to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to see some of those animals that we looked at before.

This, though, creates jobs for local people.

It may even create jobs for those local Indigenous communities, such as the San people, whether it's through tour guides or through selling their handmade crafts.

This generates income.

In fact, it generates 13% of Botswana's GDP, from tourism alone.

Next, we have agricultural development.

Farming does still exist, despite the incredibly arid conditions and the very poor nutrient soil we have there.

Parts of the Kalahari are wetter, and they're wetter enough for some types of vegetation to grow in order to support crop farming, as well as livestock ranching of sheep, cattle, goats, and ostriches.

Now, the farmers have managed to adapt to the conditions through a range of different solutions.

They may grow drought-resistant crops like sorghum or millet, or they actually use huge stores of water that lie deep under the Kalahari, as well as rivers that can be used to irrigate the land.

There is huge potential in the Kalahari for renewable energy production.

In fact, the Kalahari receives some of the highest amount of sunlight hours anywhere in the world.

It receives around 3,000 hours of sunlight per year, making it absolutely perfect for solar energy production.

In one project alone, it is able to create enough energy for 179,000 households in South Africa.

Now, this solar energy production, one, reduces reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and coal, two, it reduces carbon emissions and thereby combats climate change, and thirdly, it creates jobs in both the manufacture and installation of those solar panels.

This solar energy can also be sold and exported to both regional countries and countries further afield, thereby generating income which can be reinvested into local and national projects.

So my learning check now is a true or false.

True or false? Botswana developing their renewable energy industry in the Kalahari Desert only has environmental benefits.

Pause the video here whilst you make your answer.

So how'd we do? The correct answer is, of course, false.

Now, once again, I'd like you to pause the video whilst you consider why this is false.

Pause the video here.

And the reason it is false is that actually developing renewable energy also has huge economic benefits by creating jobs in the manufacture and installation of solar farms, as well as the eventual resale of the energy to potential partners, both regionally and further afield.

Really well done if you were able to get those two answers correct.

So onto our first practise task, and I would like you to add a relevant example of opportunities in the Kalahari Desert to each of the headings on this spider diagram.

Farming has already been done for you.

An example, specific example, has already been given.

Can you now do energy production, mineral extraction, and tourism? The second practise task asks you to explain two ways the climate of the Kalahari Desert has been used as a development opportunity.

In your answer, you should try to state the development opportunity.

And second of all, explain how and why the climate has created, or being used, to create this opportunity.

So what I'd like you to do right now is pause the video whilst you attempt these two practise tasks.

Best of luck.

Okay, so here are the answers you may have included.

With regards to energy production, the Kathu Solar Park covers 800 hectares and supplies around 179,000 households in South Africa with energy.

In mineral extraction, in 2022, Botswana earned a whopping $7.

4 billion from exporting high-value diamonds.

And finally, with tourism, 13% of Botswana's GDP comes from tourism, for example, visitors going for safaris in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

And with regards to the second question, this is what could have been mentioned.

With regards to tourism, the climate of the Kalahari Desert has developed a unique opportunity, a unique ecosystem, home to a diverse range of different species that we looked at earlier in the lesson.

This attracts tourists throughout the year and creates jobs in the tourism industry and brings income to that country, which can then be reinvested into local and national services.

And second of all is the solar energy production.

And as we know, due to its location and climate, the Kalahari Desert receives 3,000 hours of sunlight per year.

And we can use this climatic advantage to produce vast amounts of solar energy, which can then be used to power their own development, or in fact, it can be sold to other regional and national partners.

Really well done if you were able to get those two correct answers.

Okay, onto our third and final learning cycle about the development challenges now in the Kalahari Desert.

Now, needless to say, hot deserts such as the Kalahari present enormous difficulties to development.

So this is due to the extreme climate we find there, the extreme temperatures, but also the extreme lack of precipitation.

In fact, the challenges we in the Kalahari Desert are that limited water supply, those extreme temperatures, the inaccessibility of the desert, and finally, protecting the Indigenous rights of the San people.

So learning check.

I'd like you to identify the two major challenges to development in the Kalahari Desert.

Pause your video here whilst you Make your answer.

Best of luck.

And the correct answers were limited water supply and extreme temperatures are both major challenges to development in the Kalahari Desert.

Really, really well done if you were able to identify those answers.

So with regards to extreme temperatures, we know already that summer month temperatures in the daytime, the diurnal temperatures can reach up to 50 degrees Celsius.

Now, if we just think about farm animals, this prolonged exposure to high temperatures can cause those animals to suffer from heat stress.

It can lead to dehydration and reduce feed intake, and thereby cause potentially death.

We also have to remember that in a hot desert, those nighttime temperatures really can drop due to the lack of cloud cover, sometimes to zero degrees Celsius and sometimes a little bit lower.

What does that mean, though, for agriculture in this region? It means that while many desert crops are heat-tolerant, they're not frost-resistant, making them extremely vulnerable to those sudden changes and drops in temperature.

This also creates a challenge to livestock farming, different animals being able to adapt and deal with both the extreme heat, but also the extreme cold, in just a day.

Now, with regards to inaccessibility, through the Kalahari, there are few roads.

The roads which exist are really only passable with four-wheel drive vehicles.

And the paved roads, high temperatures can actually soften the tarmac, which makes it very dangerous to passing vehicles.

Finally, we also have to remember the strong winds which do exist in hot deserts, and this can blow sand and other material across those roads, which do exist, which make it extremely dangerous.

Nevertheless though, a highway has been built across the Kalahari.

It's known as the Trans-Kalahari corridor, it's a 370 million pound project and it connects Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia, which does allow for a degree of economic activity.

Its construction was problematic due to the remoteness of some of the locations that they were building and having to transport that material and workforce presented huge, huge problems and presented a severe challenge to development.

Now, needless to say as well, the Kalahari desert suffers from a limited water supply, as we know it.

In some areas, it receives less than 250 millimetres of rain annually.

Now, this lack of water really makes both arable and pastoral farming extremely difficult, as well as the growth of a tourism industry.

Unfortunately, they cannot develop a large-scale tourism industry, by which I mean attracting many, many visitors, simply because there isn't the water resources there to support that number of people.

Nevertheless, once again, the Kalahari East Water Scheme was one project to try and overcome this limited water issue.

It was built in the 1990s for a cost of 27 million pounds.

But again, due to its very remote location, it was very challenging to build and it, again, highlights the challenge of supplying water into the Kalahari Desert.

Finally, we have the displacement of the Indigenous people, those San people we looked at earlier.

Now, in the 1980s and 1990s, huge coal and diamond and uranium deposits were found in the Kalahari Desert.

These were exploited at the expense of those Indigenous San people that have been living in the desert for the past 20,000 years.

This forced the large-scale relocation of those Indigenous people, and unfortunately, this practise is continuing with the development of the tourism industry.

Lodges and other hotels is actually preventing the San people from accessing their ancestral home for hunting and other food gathering activities.

So here is our learning check.

I would like you to match the characteristics of the Kalahari Desert to the challenges they produce for development.

The characteristics of the Kalahari Desert are found on the left-hand side of the screen, whereas the challenge that they produce is found in the right-hand column.

So pause your video here whilst you think and make your answer.

Best of luck.

So what were the correct answers? Well, the first one is the fact that the summer daytime temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius make road surfaces extremely vulnerable to melting and damage transport infrastructure.

The second one was the fact that the nighttime temperatures can drop down to zero degree Celsius, and this can cause crops to become frost damaged, thereby making farming much more challenging.

The arid conditions, the very dry conditions, means that there just isn't enough water for large-scale growth of crops.

And finally, the fact that the Kalahari is home to the San Indigenous people means that economic development can actually lead to their displacement and disruption.

Now, time for our first and only practise task.

I'd like you to look at this image in front of you and to suggest the challenges of developing this land in the desert for either mining or crop farming.

It would be great if you were able to make use of specific facts that you've picked up from today's lesson about the Kalahari Desert in your answer.

So I'd like you to pause the video here whilst you write your answer.

Best of luck.

Okay, so these are the answers you could have included in your answer.

We're gonna first deal with mining.

Now, the challenges to mining are the following, the fact that the very high daytime temperatures, remember, it can get up to 50 degrees Celsius, can create a very difficult working environment without protection.

Furthermore, accessibility is really limited, meaning that within a desert that can cover almost 900,000 kilometres squared, some areas are gonna be very remote, meaning that transporting materials to and from a site for mining is extremely difficult.

So really, really well done if you made any of those answers.

And the second one was crop farming.

What challenges exist for crop farming? Well, yes, whilst it's true that some parts of the Kalahari do receive enough rainfall in order to support some types of farming, the arid conditions, though, generally do make crop farming extremely challenging, 'cause it just isn't enough water for large-scale crop growth.

Another challenge is that the temperature is very extreme.

We have high extremes during the day and low extremes during the nighttime.

Those fallen temperatures at night can cause frost damage for plants.

And another challenge is that the San people are unable to access their ancestral homes by changing the land use towards agriculture.

So really, really well done if you included any of those answers in your own answer.

To summarise, the Kalahari Desert's found in southern Africa between the Tropic of Capricorn and 30 degrees south.

It has an arid climate, with some areas receiving less than 250 millimetres of rainfall annually, with a dry season between April and October.

Economic opportunities do exist, though, specifically for mineral extraction, solar energy production, tourism, and agriculture.

Severe challenges do exist though, these being water scarcity, extreme temperatures, both hot and cold, and the inaccessibility of most locations in the Kalahari, as well as the rights of the Indigenous San people.

So it's been great learning with you today, and I thank you for joining me.

Thank you, and I'll see you again on the next lesson.