Within these borders, Egypt is predominantly arid, the often-quoted figures being between 95 and 96% desert. The remaining percentage is largely made up of the Nile Valley and Delta, the latter expanding out fanlike from just north of Cairo to the Mediterranean. The Nile originates far south of Egypt’s southern frontier with Sudan; the White Nile rising in the highlands of central Africa and the Blue Nile in the mountains of Ethiopia. It is the latter that fuels the river with the bulk of its water, and in the past (before the waters were tamed by the various dams and barrages), it was the floods of the Blue Nile waters that dictated the inundations of the Nile in Egypt. These inundations provided the agricultural lands of the Valley and Delta with an annual supply of fertile silt that was crucial to its fertility throughout over 5,000 years of human agricultural activity. It is probably true to say that no other area on earth has been subject to such a long and intensive invasion of human activity. As will be seen, it is now a wholly artificial environment. There are no natural tributaries of the Nile within Egypt’s borders today, though the Western Desert oases of Kharga, Dakhla, Farafra, and Bahariya trace a long, fossil, subterranean course of the Nile and provide outposts of fertility in an otherwise extremely dry region of the planet.
The importance of climate can be seen from the accompanying maps. Both rainfall and temperature alter radically in a very short geographical distance as one moves away from the north coast. The narrow strip of cooler, wetter desert along the north coast supports a similarly narrow biome, including plants and animals that owe more to Mediterranean conditions than Saharan. Even within this zone, climatic and geological features support plant and animal species not found elsewhere in Egypt, notably in the extreme west and east. To the south, precipitation, often in the form of snow, increases in the mountains of South Sinai, while there is an increase in terms of orographic rainfall in the Gebel Elba region in the southeasternmost corner of the country. However, through much of Egypt the pattern is broadly similar, temperature rising and rainfall declining rapidly inland from the northern coast and then more steadily south over the rest of the country.
Within this general pattern, the Egyptian landscape varies dramatically and with it, the plants and animals it supports. While microclimatic conditions will always vary on the smallest scale, a number of distinct biological regions can be noted in Egypt. Sweeping attempts to catalog its flora and fauna within four bio-geographical regions; namely, the Saharo-Sindian, Irano-Turanian, Mediterranean, and Afro-tropical are in danger of oversimplifying the impact of historical and relatively recent geo-climatic influences and, most recently of all, the impact of humans—an impact that simply cannot be ignored, especially over the Nile Valley and Delta. For example, the Nubian Ibex Capra ibex probably evolved from Eurasian relatives of the African antelope group. In Eurasia, this stock evolved in competition with the deer (Cervidae) to become adapted to marginal montane habitats. During the last ice ages, these caprines reinvaded northern Africa, but with the retreat of the colder climate were left in the mountains of northeastern Africa, extending down to an isolated area in the Ethiopian Highlands. Today, this seemingly ancient, yet relatively recent, distribution leaves the Nubian Ibex as a resident of the Sinai mountains and the highlands of the Red Sea Mountains. Within historical times, and especially the last two hundred years, the influence of humans is sadly evident in the distribution of the Nubian Ibex. Due to hunting and habitat disturbance, it has become confined within its already limited habitat to those areas most remote and most inaccessible to human disturbance. Little of Egypt, and its flora and fauna, has been left untouched by human hand.
Historically, all evidence indicates that between 8000 and 3000 BC, this northeastern corner of the African continent underwent a climate change, becoming both hotter and drier. Petroglyphs made by the ancients indicate a fauna much more akin to the East African savanna fauna of today. For instance, at Silwa Bahari there are predynastic rock drawings of African Elephants Loxodonta africana, White Rhinos Ceratotherium simum, and Gerenuk Litocranius walleri, as well as hunting scenes with Ostriches Struthio camelus being pursued with bows and arrows. In the rock tombs of the pharaohs, there are frequent representations of the Bubal Hartebeeste Alcelaphus buselaphhus buselaphus, a subspecies now extinct but related to the hartebeestes of current East and southern Africa. Along the Nile, the Hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius survived until historical times.
However, to define Egypt today loosely as a hot, desert country is once more to oversimplify: the different types of desert differ radically in topography and resultant flora and fauna. The Nile Valley and Delta apart, the Egyptian desert regions are represented by distinct plant and animal communities. What follows is an overview of these regions with a summary of the Protected Areas designated within each biome.
Stretching from the border with Libya to Alexandria, the coastal desert’s distinctive feature is the relatively high, and more consistent, rainfall and low temperature compared to the rest of Egypt. As can be seen from the map, the rainfall decreases very rapidly inland from the coast, giving this zone a maximum width of around 50km along its 600km length. The distinctive geography of this narrow coastal strip allows it to play host to Egypt’s most prolific flora, both in terms of absolute number and of species diversity. Unsurprisingly, this rich flora supports a wide range of animal life. Distinctive birds include the Barbary Partridge Alectoris barbara (probably locally extinct), Houbara Bustard Chlamydotis undulata, Dupont’s Lark Chersophilus duponti, Thekla Lark Galerida theklae, Temminck’s Horned Lark Eremophila bilopha, and Red-rumped Wheatear Oenanthe moesta. Characteristic mammals include the Long-eared Hedgehog Hemiechinus auritus, Cape Hare Lepus capensis, Anderson’s Gerbil Gerbillus andersoni, Shaw’s Jird Meriones shawi, Fat Sand Rat Psammomys obesus, Lesser Molerat Spalax leucodon, Middle Eastern Dormouse Eliomys melanurus, Greater Egyptian Jerboa Jaculus orientalis, and Four-toed Jerboa Allactaga tetradactyla. Sadly, this coastal strip is also one of the most threatened habitats. Tourist developments expanding west from Alexandria have destroyed much of this habitat to Mersa Matruh and threatened expansion west will probas-bly mean that no area east of Sallum is safe. With the exception of the al-Omayed Biosphere Reserve inland from al-Alamein where the Red-rumped Wheatear may still breed, no area within this coastal desert is protected.
Annual rainfall in Egypt in mm (after Osborn and Helmy [1980])
One Protected Area: al-Omayed Biosphere Reserve.
The vast expanse of Egypt west of the Nile Valley and south of the north coast is collectively known as the Western Desert, the north-easternmost portion of the Sahara Desert. The area is characterized by low relief and areas of vast, inhospitably arid hamada and sand plains with very little rainfall. This barren landscape, in parts virtually lifeless, is relieved by areas of massif, such as Gebel Uweinat in the southwest, and the oases scattered along fossil watercourses. Foremost among these are Siwa, Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla, Kharga, and Wadi Natrun, which show a fauna similar to that of the Nile Valley and Delta. The Fayoum is not strictly speaking an oasis but rather nowadays a dead-end branch of the Nile. It too has a fauna similar to the Nile Valley and Delta.
To the north of the Western Desert, the dominant physical feature is the Qattara Depression covering 19,500km2 and reaching below sea level 134m in depth. The floor of the depression too has isolated oases, sufficient to support Acacia species and a number of salt lakes. The western region of the Western Desert