Freshwater lake in the middle of the Sahara desert

In the driest placeSahara Desert, there is a place filled with shady green trees and clear freshwater lakes. That is Ubari - one of the most beautiful oases in the Middle East.

The Sahara is not as dry a place as we think.

According to historians, hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Sahara was still green, with an extremely diverse ecosystem and aquatic life. But some climatic events a few thousand years ago caused the rain to stop falling, the water on the surface evaporated. The entire area was covered with sand, becoming the brutal desert we see today.

However, the green here is not completely gone. Beneath the sand are huge underground rivers, flowing to the surface in some places. These places are still rich in nutrients, trees grow fully, forming a closed ecosystem in the heart of the desert. These are oases, and Ubari is one of them.

In the middle of the Sahara desert there is a place filled with shady green trees and clear freshwater lakes - that is the Ubari oasis.

And in fact, it is not entirely correct to say that the Sahara is a dry place, because there is more than just one oasis. With underground rivers flowing from the Atlas Mountains, there are at least 200,000 km2 of desert inside.²The area is oases, accounting for more than 2% of the total area.

In addition, some areas of the desert are also gradually shrinking due to human irrigation. For example, in Egypt, the desert areas near the Nile River have almost changed because of this.

Speaking of the Ubari Oasis, it is located in the Targa Valley, between the Messak Sattafat plateau and the Idhan Ubari sand dunes. The average temperature here often exceeds 40 degrees Celsius, and the annual rainfall here is also extremely low, sometimes not even a drop of rain for decades.

But thanks to the rich water source from underground rivers, the lake's water level almost never dries up, at least at this time.

Ubari Oasis from above.

However, it is worth noting that although the Ubari oasis is known as "the most beautiful in the Middle East", the water here isundrinkable. More precisely, not all oases have drinking water, because most of them are salt lakes.

Not to mention, the lake water in Ubari also contains some impurities that are not good for the human body, so people still advise visitors not to swim or drink water here.

Although the Ubari oasis is known as "the most beautiful in the Middle East", the water here is not drinkable.

According to Young Knowledge