DESERTED AREA OF NEPAL.

                    This area is  situated in the north of the Great Himalayans which consist of  Kanjiroba , Dhaulagiri, Annapurna Ι, ΙΙ, ΙΙΙ & ΙV , Lamjung, Himalchuli and Manaslu Himals. It comprises the area of Dolpa , Mustang  Manang and  even the upper part ot the Budi Gandaki river of the Gorkha district . In  a simple word , it  can be said that this area is the post –Himalayan one . as the Great Himalayas are situated on the  south of this  area , in the form  of  an obstacle to the flow of the monsoon from the south –east , this area is more or less completely rain –shaded and gets very little amount of  precipitation. Because most of the  monsoon precipitates to the  south of the Himalayas , only  the escaped- away part precipitates through some passes there. That is why, the rainfall in this part is corporately  very low. For instance, Jomsom,the gateway of  the Mustang district, though situated  nearly on the border of  the Himalayas and the deserted  land of Mustang, still has and  annual rainfall  of about 324.2mm.which is , compared to other places in the southern  part of the Great Himalayas, quite low . Jajarkot, situated on the south of Mt. Dhaulagiri, has an annual rainfall of about 1888.2mm. where as  Jomsom has only 324.2mm. the further interior  parts , Mustang, Manang and some parts of Dolpa, have still lower precipitation.

         Suffering from this  complete rain-shadow and very speedy winds of desiccating nature, the vegetation, here , is a sot of dry alpine  deserted type. Nowhere are found trees , there are only shrubs and  scrubs found as greeneries . It is otherwise a naked  land suffering from very bad erosion problems . there are two types of erosion in this area.  One is the splash erosion cased by the splashing  effect of the rain drops on the naked ground, and the  other is the wind erosion caused by strong winds blowing continuously for 14-15 hour every day. The latter is splashes down . the greenery of this deserted land contains mostly the Caragana species, Berberis angulasa, Sophora moorcraftiane. Egeardiana and Artemisia species .this desertded land possesses alpine type of climate the alpine here is further grouped into Humid alpine and Arid alpine . Humid alpine consists of more or less a luzruntly developed vegetation. In this the ground is covered with different  types of grasses , herbs , shrubs and scrubs such as Juniperus squamata , Rhododendron setosum which are found near Jomsom and neighboring areas but it is replaced by the Caragana in the further north. But the arid alpine consists of  a very poor flora. In this area no Rhododendron and Juniperus are found . it there is any vegetation , that is Caragana, which is also  in a position to be vanished . So in this deserted  land , due to the creation of more open  land by the  clearance of the existing vegetation by the local people, the environment has become too hot and too cold. and transition from the humid zone  that is Rhododendron and Juniperus type , to the arid alpine zone that is  Caragana type is more or less continuous .Beyond the arid alpine zone , that is beyond the limit of  vascular plants , there is another alpine  zone called Alpine Barren which is  just below the permanent snow line . It contains mostly rocks, boulders and sands stretching towards the snow line.