ABSTRACT
The creation of new desert landforms and landscapes such as regs, hammadas, barkhans, nebkas, reboubs, and other types of continental dunes is a result of wind erosion. Allochthonous regs develop on alluvial material of terraces or colluvia where the finer detrital elements are blown away, leaving gravel and pebbles which cover the surface of the reg, protecting it from further wind erosion. Owing to heavy demographic pressures, there is a progressive encroachment of cropping on the pastoral areas which is one of the major causes of desertization. Desertization is concerned with the creep of desert-like conditions into areas where they should not climatologically exist, thus reducing the size of the ecumene. Several authors have stressed the possible consequences of desertization on climate fluctuations as a result of the huge amount of dust produced and released into the atmosphere–dust which travels thousands of miles away from the areas where it originated.
