Morphology of protected and non-protected Nitraria retusa coastal nabkha in Kuwait, Arabian Gulf: A comparative study

Morphology, spatial pattern and sediment of Nitraria tangutorum nebkhas in barchans interdune areas at the southeast margin of the Badain Jaran Desert, China

“…6. Because positive self-correlations have been shown among the morphometric parameters of nebkhas (Liu et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2013;Khalaf et al, 2014), in the following text only widths of the nebkhas are used to describe and compare in different interdune zones, as width is a typical morphometric parameter of nebkhas. The morphometric parameters of the nebkhas in Zw, Zl, Zh, and Zi are significantly different (p b 0.05) ( Table 2).…”

“…Zhang et al, 2011), oasis-desert ecotones (Liu et al, 2008;Wu et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2013), agro-pastoral transitional zones (Wang et al, 2006), piedmont alluvial fans (Khalaf et al, 1995;Qong et al, 2002), areas surrounding lakes in arid regions (El-Bana et al, 2002Liu et al, 2009), floodplains or downstream areas of rivers (Nickling and Wolfe, 1994;Yang et al, 2014), margins of deserts (Jia and Li, 2008;Yin et al, 2013), coasts (Khalaf and Al-Awadhi, 2012), interdune areas of slacks of active dunes (Hesp and McLachlan, 2000), and vegetated dunes (Tsoar and Blumberg, 2002;Ardon et al, 2009). These studies of nebkhas have focused on nebkha morphologies (Nickling and Wolfe, 1994;Khalaf et al, 1995;Tengberg and Chen, 1998;Hesp and McLachlan, 2000;Khalaf and Al-Awadhi, 2012;Khalaf et al, 2014), properties of the sediment (Hesp and McLachlan, 2000;Langford, 2000;P.J. Zhang et al, 2011), formation processes and causes (Hesp, 1981;Tengberg, 1995;Barrineau and Ellis, 2013;Zhang et al, 2013;Gillies et al, 2014), significance for ecological effects, environmental changes, desertification, and landscape (Tengberg, 1995;Dougill and Thomas, 2002;El-Bana et al, 2002;Wang et al, 2006;Lang et ...…”

“…Zhang et al, 2011), Nitraria (Khalaf et al, 1995;Jia and Li, 2008;El-Sheikh et al, 2010;Khalaf et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014), Artemisia ordosica (P. Zhang et al, 2011;Zhang et al, 2013), and Mesquite (Langford, 2000;Wang et al, 2006;Gillies et al, 2014). Studies have also examined nebkhas in various ecosystems, such as steppe (Tengberg, 1995;Tengberg and Chen, 1998), steppe-desert ecotones (P.J.…”

“…Zhang et al, 2011), formation processes and causes (Hesp, 1981;Tengberg, 1995;Barrineau and Ellis, 2013;Zhang et al, 2013;Gillies et al, 2014), significance for ecological effects, environmental changes, desertification, and landscape (Tengberg, 1995;Dougill and Thomas, 2002;El-Bana et al, 2002;Wang et al, 2006;Lang et al, 2013), internal structures (Qong et al, 2002), and interactions with surroundings (Pool et al, 2013). Almost all of the studies were only concerned with nebkhas themselves, and limited studies have considered the external factors that affect nebkhas (Khalaf et al, 2014), especially natural factors. Nebkha is a type of dune that typically forms with other landforms simultaneously, such as parabolic and transverse dunes (or barchans).…”

“…Nebkha is a type of biogeomorphology that forms from the interactions of plants, wind and sediments, and is influenced by other factors, such as climatic conditions and anthropogenic activities (Du et al, 2010;Khalaf et al, 2014).…”