Key term
AQA GCSE Geography 8035
Climate Change
Coastal Landscapes in the UKUK landscape option
Topic overviewWaves and coastal processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transport and depositionCoastal landforms of erosion and depositionIdentifying landforms on a stretch of UK coastlineCoastal management: hard and soft engineering, and a UK schemeManaging the Holderness coast at Mappleton
Cold EnvironmentsLiving world option
Ecosystems
EnergyResource option
FoodResource option
Geographical Applications: Fieldwork Enquiry
Topic overviewChoosing an enquiry question, its theory and its sourcesRisk assessment in fieldworkPrimary and secondary data, and sampling methodsJustifying your data collection methodsChoosing and using presentation methodsDescribing, analysing and explaining fieldwork resultsAnomalies in fieldwork dataDrawing conclusions from an enquiryEvaluating an enquiry: problems, limitations and missing dataHow reliable were your conclusions?
Geographical Skills
Topic overviewAtlas maps: coordinates, distributions and patternsReading thematic maps for physical and human associationsOS maps: scale, grid references, distance and directionOS maps: gradient, contours and landscape featuresOS maps: relief, cross sections and drawing inferencesOS maps: transects, landscape description and human activityComparing maps, sketch maps and photographsDescribing landscapes from photographs, and annotating themChoosing and constructing the right graph or chartCompleting choropleth, isoline, dot, desire-line and flow mapsReading population pyramids, choropleth and flow-line mapsNumber, scale, proportion and ratio, and designing data sheetsDrawing conclusions from numerical dataAverages, spread, percentages and correlationSpotting weaknesses in how data is presentedUsing maps, fieldwork data and GIS as evidenceUsing imagery, written, visual and graphical sourcesUsing numerical and statistical information as evidenceFraming an enquiry and writing about itBuilding an argument and reaching a conclusionIssue evaluation: stakeholders, options and a justified decision
Glacial Landscapes in the UKUK landscape option
Hot DesertsLiving world option
Resource Management
River Landscapes in the UKUK landscape option
Tectonic Hazards
The Changing Economic World
Topic overviewClassifying development, and how it is measuredWhy measures fall short, the Demographic Transition Model, and causes of uneven developmentThe consequences of uneven developmentClosing the development gap, and tourism as a strategyA rapidly developing country: change, industry, aid and impactsNigeria: a newly emerging economyEconomic futures in the UKUK economic change: named examples
Tropical Rainforests
UK Physical Landscapes
Urban Issues and Challenges
Topic overviewGlobal urbanisation: patterns, trends and what drives themThe rise of megacitiesA major city in a poorer or emerging country, and planning for the urban poorRio de Janeiro: growth, opportunities and challengesThe UK's urban population and a major UK cityBristol: urban change in a major UK cityAn urban regeneration projectSustainable urban living and urban transport
WaterResource option
Weather Hazards
Topic overviewGlobal atmospheric circulation: pressure belts and surface windsWhere tropical storms form, and whyThe structure of a tropical storm, and the effect of climate changeThe effects of and responses to tropical stormsReducing the effects of tropical stormsWeather hazards in the UKAn extreme weather event in the UK, and evidence of more extreme weather
Hot Deserts
- 4 subtopics
- 12 things to know
- Paper 1 section B
- Paper 1 section B, hot deserts or cold environments
What Hot Deserts covers
Hot Deserts is examined in Paper 1, Living with the physical environment. It covers hot desert characteristics, interdependence and adaptations, hot desert biodiversity, opportunities and challenges of developing a hot desert and desertification: causes and how the risk is reduced.
Where it is assessed
Paper 1 section B
Living with the physical environment: the living world, hot deserts or cold environments.
Check the AQA specification ↗The 4 subtopics
Each one has its own page.
- Hot desert characteristics, interdependence and adaptationsWhere hot deserts lie and why, rainfall, day and night temperatures, thin soils and sparse plants, the links between climate, soil, plants, animals and people, and plant and animal adaptations.Open →
- Hot desert biodiversityWhy desert biodiversity is low yet fragile and slow to heal, and the threats from groundwater pumping, overgrazing, tourism, mining, salinisation, restricted ranges and a warming climate.Open →
- Opportunities and challenges of developing a hot desertMineral extraction, solar and wind energy, irrigated farming and tourism in hot deserts, the challenges of extreme heat, water supply and inaccessibility, and the Thar Desert's minerals, Bhadla Solar Park, Indira Gandhi Canal and Jaisalmer tourism.Open →
- Desertification: causes and how the risk is reducedWhat desertification is, how climate change, population growth, fuel wood collection, overgrazing, over-cultivation and soil erosion cause it, and how water and soil management, tree planting and appropriate technology reduce the risk.Open →
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
Your recallNot started
Key term
Explain how extreme temperatures make development difficult in a hot desert.
Key term
Explain why soil erosion is both a cause and a consequence of desertification.
Key term
How much rain falls in a hot desert in a year, and how reliable is it?
Key term
Why do hot deserts have scorching days but cold nights?
Key term
Why does damage to desert vegetation take so long to heal?
Key term
Which four kinds of development opportunity should you be able to describe for the hot desert you studied?
Key term
What is desertification?
Key term
Describe the soils and plant cover of a hot desert.
Key term
How does taking too much groundwater threaten desert wildlife?
Key term
Why is a hot desert often a good place to extract minerals?
Key term
Give two ways of managing water that lower the risk of desertification.
Take Hot Deserts further
The same content, four other ways.
Commonly confused
Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.
Overgrazing vs Over-cultivation
Overgrazing: keeping more animals on an area than it can support. Over-cultivation: growing crops on the same ground season after season without resting it.
Desertification vs Salinisation
Desertification: land on a desert fringe degraded until it loses its soil, plants and productivity. Salinisation: salts left behind in the soil as irrigation water evaporates.
Tap root vs Shallow root network
Tap root: a very long growth reaching water deep underground. Shallow root network: a wide spreading growth soaking up a brief shower before it evaporates.
Questions from this topic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
Where in the world are most hot deserts found, and why there?
Model answer
In broad belts roughly 15–30° north and south of the Equator, where air that rose at the Equator sinks again, warming and drying as it descends.
- 2
How much rain falls in a hot desert in a year, and how reliable is it?
Model answer
Less than 250 mm, and it is very unreliable, often arriving as rare heavy downpours with dry years in between.
- 3
Why do hot deserts have scorching days but cold nights?
Model answer
Cloudless skies and dry air let the sun heat the bare ground strongly by day, and let that heat escape straight back to space after dark.
- 4
Describe the soils and plant cover of a hot desert.
Model answer
The soils are thin, sandy or stony and low in nutrients, and vegetation is sparse and widely spaced with bare ground between the plants.
- 5
How does the desert climate control the soil and the plants that grow in it?
Model answer
Scarce rain and rapid evaporation allow only drought-tolerant plants to survive, and because so few plants shed litter the soil stays thin and short of nutrients.
- 6
How do desert animals depend on desert plants, and what happens when those plants are lost?
Model answer
Plants give animals food, shade and much of their moisture, so removing them means the ecosystem can support far fewer animals.
What is inside Levo
Six ways to work the same material.
Hot Deserts revision questions
- What does Hot Deserts cover in AQA GCSE Geography?
- 4 subtopics: hot desert characteristics, interdependence and adaptations, hot desert biodiversity, opportunities and challenges of developing a hot desert and desertification: causes and how the risk is reduced. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
- How is Hot Deserts organised?
- By the AQA 8035 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.
Every question in Hot Deserts, on a schedule.
Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.
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