Inhabited Drylands

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Inhabited Drylands anthromes near Air Massif, Niger.
Guide to Anthromes > Explore by anthrome > Inhabited Drylands
10.4%
of land area
0.9%
of global population
1.0%
of food calories
15.1%
of key biodiversity areas
14.7%
of protected areas
5.7%
of carbon storage

Regions without natural tree cover with low levels of land use and a range of populations

The inhabited drylands anthrome is characterized by cold, arid, or semi-arid conditions and human habitation. It includes regions that are predominantly covered by desert, shrub-steppe, and grassland (not woodland). Due to harsh conditions and low potential for agriculture, human settlements in inhabited drylands are often small and widely dispersed (<20% used). Inhabited drylands house the eighth smallest percentage of global population and contribute the third lowest percentage of food calories within non-wildland anthromes. However, inhabited drylands occupy the second largest percentage of land area, including the second largest percentage of protected area and the largest percentage of key biodiversity area. This anthrome stores the sixth largest percentage of carbon of all the anthrome classes, indicating the significance of the natural vegetation found here.

Featured image attribution:
Inhabited Drylands anthromes near Air Massif, Niger. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nomads_Habitat.jpg IsmaelDa10, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons