The Study Area
Abu Dhabi (Fig. 1 and 2) is the largest Emirate of the United Arab Emirates occupying 84% (77,000
km2) area of the country. Abu Dhabi’s major ecosystems comprise the coast, numerous islands,
mountainous areas, gravel plains, and sand desert (Boer, 1998). Nearly 80% of the Abu Dhabi Emirate area is desert, to the north and west is an extensive area of coastal salt flats, locally known as
“sabkha". Isolated interdunal sabkha exists in the desert away from coastline. The sandy desert begins
behind the coastal sabkha, with little white dune ripples eventually forming an expanse of large orangered
dunes in the southwest. About 100 kilometers inland, towering dunes rising to 200 meters (mega
dunes) are common. These form part of the Empty Quarter or “Rub Al-Khali”, a vast desert which
stretches beyond the UAE’s southern border (UAE Yearbook, 2008). Gravelly plains also cover wide
areas in both the far west and east of the Emirate. Mountains are absent, a notable exception being the
impressive Jebel Hafit near Al Ain, an outlier of the Hajar mountain range (Brown, 2008). Abu Dhabi
Emirate experiences extremely high temperatures (Table 1) during summers (45-50ºC) with mean
temperature being 28ºC and short mild winters with temperature as low as 3ºC (Alsharhan and Kendall,
2002). Humidity is the highest along the coastal fringes and decreases inland. The mean annual rainfall
is about 111 mm.