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The Karoo in South Africa

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Abstract

The word “karoo” means in the Nama language “dry area”. The Karoo encompasses all the arid areas (zonobiome III) which are south of the Orange River and border on Namaqualand (Fig. 3.81). The chief difference between the Namib and the Karoo lies in the seasonal distribution of the sparse annual rainfall: in the Namib it falls mainly in the summer, in Namaqualand mostly in the winter months and in spring and autumn in the Karoo; in the latter case there are two rainy seasons.

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© 1986 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Walter, H., Breckle, SW. (1986). The Karoo in South Africa. In: Ecological Systems of the Geobiosphere. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-06812-0_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-06812-0_28

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-06814-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-06812-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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