AQA A Level Geography: Hot Deserts - Systems and Processes

Systems and Processes:

• Sources of energy in hot desert environments: insolation, winds, runoff
• Sediment sources, cells and budgets
• Geomorphic processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transportation, deposition
• Origin and development of landforms in mid and low latitude deserts: aeolian - deflation hollows, desert pavements, ventifacts, yardangs, zeugans, barchans and sief dunes; water - wadis, bahadas, pediments, playas and inselbergs
• Distinctively arid geomorphic processes: weathering (thermal fracture, exfoliation, chemical weathering, block + granular disintegration
• The role of wind: erosion (deflation + abrasion), transportation, suspension, saltation, surface creep, deposition
• Sources of water: exogenous, endoreic + ephemeral, the episodic role of water, sheet flooding and channel flash flooding