Makgadikgadi Pan

- 20.81666666666725.416666666667Koordinaten: 20 ° 49 '0 "S, 25 ° 25' 0" E

The Makgadikgadi Pans [ makxadikxadi ] are a collection of individual salt pans in north-eastern Botswana.

Geography

The Makgakgadi pans consist of a variety of large and small salt pans, which lie southeast of the Okavango delta in the northeast area of the Kalahari. Covering an area over 8400 km2, it shall, after the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia and the Great Salt Desert in Utah, USA, as one of the largest salt pans in the world. The main tributaries are the Nata ( from the confluence of Maitengwe and Manzamnyama ) in the Sowa Pan and the coming out of the Okavango Delta Boteti, the seasonal feeding the Ntwetwe pan.

Formation

At the site of the present Makgadikgadi salt pans was once a large lake ( Makgadikgadisee ). It included about 60,000 square kilometers and reached a depth of up to 30 meters. As the lake without outflow was the salt concentration. Due to climatic change and tectonic movements around 4000 years ago, the lake dried up and left deep at its deepest points of up to five meters of salt crusts back, today's salt pans.

Landscape

The Makgadikgadi Pans are the most sparsely populated region of Botswana. The pans are without vegetation, at its edges there is flat grassland. By far the largest pans are the Ntwetwe pan and Sowa pan. Because of Mopipi dam that supplies the Orapa diamond mine in water, leads the Boteti, the inflow to Ntwetwe pan, now only very rarely water into the pan. Therefore, it is almost always dry. The Sowa Pan is powered by Nata. During the rainy season, usually forms in the northern part of a large lake that attracts many birds, including pelicans, flamingos, herons and storks.

Animal and plant life

The salt pans themselves are pure salt deserts, which are surrounded by grass savanna. To the north and west of the Ntwetwe pan grow Doumpalme ( Hyphaene ) and especially the islands - as Kubu Iceland and Gabasedi Iceland - are covered with Baobab ( Baobab ), some of which have even gained tourist awareness as Bain's Baobabs or Chapman's Baobab.

While in the dry season only a few species, especially birds such as ostrich, Fahl Plover, shepherds plovers, various turtles and lizards, as Weißkehlwarane or endemic Makgadikgadi Stachelagame ( Agama hispida makgadikgadiensis ) can in the hot day and survive dry climate, draws in the high summer rainy season from March to December, the Wild Chobe and Linyanti of and from the Okavango Delta to the open grass areas. At the time, the game is concentrated in the northern areas of the Nxai pan in the west to the Sowa pan in the east.

Especially grazers such as gemsbok, springbok, impala, wildebeest and Burchell's Zebra migrate regularly to the Makgadikgadi Pans. Cape buffalo and elephant on the other hand pull only during very wet years in these regions. The prey follow the hunter as Lion, Leopard, Cheetah, Caracal, Hyena, African Wild Dog and Jackal.

Where the salt pans are flooded in wet years and form huge lakes, the salt desert into a habitat for water birds such as ducks, geese and white pelicans. During these years the salt pans are home and nesting place for thousands of flamingos.

At the end of the rainy season ( from May) the game moves further south to the Makgadikgadi plains to the savannahs of grass on the edge of Ntwetwe pan. If after the end of the rainy season start drying out the smaller pans, pulls the wild for Boteti and migrates these up to the Okavango Delta and then. Partly further to the northeast at Linyanti and Chobe

Economy

Of economic importance, the company Botswana Ash ( Botash ), the sodium and salt breaks down in the middle of the Sowa Pan, and the largest diamond mines in the world are at Orapa. Situated south of Ntwetwe salt pan, they consume a large part of the Boteti here from the Okavango Delta -led water and hence present a problem for the natural balance and the water balance of the region dar. addition, tourism plays a prominent role for the entire Central Kalahari.

Tourism

On the western edge of the salt pans are the Makgadikgadi Pans and Nxai Pan National Park, both just across the street. The occurrence of wild animals in the two pans is highly dependent on the season. In the north of Sowa Pan, the Nata Bird Sanctuary, which includes a small, regularly flooded part of the Salt Basin and adjacent grasslands lies. Here you will find after a productive rainy season best opportunities for bird watching. In the southwest of the Sowa Pan Kubu is Iceland, a small elevation on the pan where residues are found earlier settlement.