13.1 13.1 Mauritania
Compiled by: Geostudies, as an edited version of a chapter by D.E. Vermeer in The World’s Coastline (1985: 549–553). A new version is in preparation.
Last revised: April 2002
13.1.1 Introduction
The Mauritanian coast of West Africa is one of the chief desert coasts of the world. It stretches about 850 km between 16° N and 21° N. Atmospheric subsidence associated with the subtropical high pressure belt accounts for the aridity of those latitudes, but the aridity of coastal Mauritania is intensified by cold-water upwelling and associated temperature inversions induced by the Canary Current setting southward at 0.5 knot. Annual precipitation along the coast ranges from less than 50 mm in the north to little more than 300 mm in the vicinity of the Senegal River delta in the south.
Three promontories, two within Mauritania and the third to the south in Senegal, anchor this coastal zone and create two distinct sections. The northern section between Cape Blanc and Cape...
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Bird, E.C.F. (2003). West Africa. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) The World’s Coasts: Online. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48369-6_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48369-6_14
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