SHEEPT Factors of the Thar Desert

S: The Thar desert is home to over 16.6 million people and has a very high population density. A lot of the families in the Thar Desert live with each other by using a combined family system, meaning all generations live together in one residence. Money earned by family members becomes the common property of the family as a whole. H: There have been many debates between researchers on how old the Thar desert is. Some say it is as young as 4000 years old and other say it's millions of years old. E: The Thar desert is very hot all year round but can become fairly cold during winter. There is not much water due to the small amounts of rainfall and the fast evaporation, however, people, plants and animals have developed many ways to adapt to this environment and are still thriving. E: The Thar desert produces quite a bit of money for India in different ways. Most of the farming done in the Thar is made for food for the people and not for money, however, there is a small portion of farming that is done in the desert for a profit. Also, the desert makes up 30-60% of India's entire cotton supply. It also attracts many tourist as it is though to have be dated back a long time ago and, despite being a hot desert, it is home to over 120 species of plants and animals. The winds in the Thar are strong, so energy production is a big part of the money factor of the Thar. And finally, the Thar desert has many valuable resources so a lot of mining occurs there. Despite the terrible effects on the environment this has, it is a primary source for money for this biome. P: The government of India helps the Thar desert in some ways because of the population there. They allow and help with irrigation of the land to allow more crops to be grown and to sustain food but it isn't the government's primary focus. T: The Thar desert is not the most technologically advanced place in India. They have good energy sources but besides that, they don't have much when it comes to technology. The Thari people have learned how to survive with the resources in the Thar desert provides. Because of the lack of technology, lots of the desert is inaccessible. The roads throughout the desert are very bad and there are not many of them. The few that do exist in the biome get covered over by sand most of the time due to the strong winds.