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LANDSCAPE

That is roughly the size of France. It is the only place on earth where jaguars, bears, wolves, and bison live together. Today the great predators have been almost wiped out as centuries of European overdevelopment take their toll.

A border cuts across this desert, and cowboys drive their herds where bison once roamed. Farms have replaced scrubland, sprawl is paving over cacti and creosote. As millions of people descend onto this fragile land, the future of the Chihuahuan desert has never been more uncertain.

Nature does not follow neat lines on a map. What is called today the Chihuahuan desert is a web of hundreds of landscapes that move from rugged forests to windswept dunes. There is no agreement on exactly where the deserts margins start, but its core is the high basin in modern Mexico between the Sierra Madre ranges.

The desert spreads out to cover much of northern Mexico before crossing the US border into Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. Here mountains cut across the desert west to east, and it fades into the Colorado Plateau, Sonora desert, and the rugged plains of west Texas.

The Chihuahuan desert is unique among North American deserts by how cold, and mountainous it is. Unlike the nearby Sonora desert the Chihuahuan is high-altitude, at about 3 - 5,000 feet above sea level (900 - 1,500 meters). It can be much colder than ecoregions around it, with temperatures hovering around about 66 - 80 °F (18 - 30 °C) year-round. Days at, or below, freezing, are not uncommon. Some of the coldest temperatures in Mexico occur in northeastern Chihuahua state.

Water makes a place a desert, not climate. The Sierra Madre Oriental and Occidental form a wedge around the desert, creating a 'rain shadow' where moisture is trapped on one side of each range, and not able to reach the interior. Most water only comes during sporadic, but intense summer monsoon storms. This refills groundwater which feeds the springs scattered across the landscape. Only a few rivers cross the desert, the largest by far being the Rio Grande (Río Bravo in Mexico).

Such wide swings in temperature and precipitation over such a mountainous area have produced a unique landscape full of highly specialized habitats. They are small, and so they are fragile. Tiny changes in weather, climate, land cover, and rainfall can obliterate delicate ecoystems with little hope of recovery.

The last 500 years of European settlement have already led to significant disruption of the landscape, and manmade climate change is adding even more pressure, making the desert drift further and further away from a pre-colonial state.

HISTORY

The Spanish were the first Europeans to see the Chihuahuan desert, but far from the first humans to inhabit it. Rarámuri (Tarahumara), Conchos, Apache, Comanche, Guarijío and possibly hundreds more separate groups lived in the desert, many as farmers while others were nomadic hunters. Some of them survive today despite centuries of European invasion and settlement.

For centuries, the Spanish were the only Europeans to live in the desert, and at great cost. Decades of violent resistance by Indigenous peoples against Spanish armies meant that colonization here came haltingly compared to other parts of the empire, but still it came.

Silver was discovered in the southern Chihuahuan desert in the mid-16th century, fueling a stampede of settlement and conquest. By 1803, mines in northern Mexico were producing almost 70% of all silver in the Americas.

Anglo-Americans from the growing United States spread westwards in the 19th century. They quickly came into conflict with the Mexican government over resources and territory in the west.

The Mexican-American war was a humiliating defeat for Mexico, and in 1848 it ceded most of the modern states of Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado to the United States.

Mexican citizens and Natives in these states began to be inundated with a massive wave of settlers. The invention of the railroad, and the suppression of the Apache and Comanche nations also led to more settlement in the Chihuahuan desert.

The bulk of the desert remained in Mexico where the economy was dominated by mining, and ranching. Civil wars, foreign invasions, and a entrenched aristocratic elite meant most people remained poor and disenfranchised. Many fighters in the Mexican Revolution used the desert as a base to fight rivals in the US and Mexico, like Pancho Villa, who became governor of Chihuahua during the revolution.

Industrialization drew many to the growing cities of Chihuahua (the capital of the eponymous state), and Ciudad Juárez in the 20th century. The Mexican government also encouraged factories called Maquiladora along the northern border as a way to sell cheap goods to the United States.

This border economy grew rapidly, and today it is a defining part of US - Mexico relations, and the history of the Chihuahuan desert. Development cannot come without a cost, and the water, materials, and food for a flood of new inhabitants has massively effected the landscape.

ECOLOGY

The Chihuahuan desert is one of the most biodiverse arid ecoregions on earth. Historically, it had large populations of pronghorn antelope, bison, and deer alongside black bears, cougars, jaguars and wolves. Animals from central America and Mexico collided with species found further north amid plant species found nowhere else on earth.

There are almost 1,000 endemic plant taxa in the Chihuahuan desert. Unlike the nearby Sonora desert with its famous saguaro, most cacti here are small, easily missed among patches of shrubland. They provide food, water, and even shelter to desert wildlife.

The desertification that trapped species in small ranges also fostered an explosion of specialization, leading not only to great plant diversity but also diversity in aquatic life. Half of all fish species in the desert are endemic, and many live in tiny areas not much larger than a few pools. Relics of a wetter era.

Because so many desert species occupy these tiny niches, created over millennia of specialization, they are uniquely at risk to environmental changes. A single event, like a landslide, can destroy the whole habitat of a desert fish. This effects not only the other species in the pool but every species that relies on that water-source. Humans can do this just as easily. A tractor can tear up a patch of endangered cacti, or developers can fill in a pond.

Natural climate changes have produced wet and dry cycles that stretch over centuries. Long enough for societies to become used to one climate norm only to be thrown into crisis when those norms shift.

The lush grasslands that greeted many cattle ranchers in the early 1900s were part of one such wet cycle. When the land became drier, natural desertification was rapidly accelerated by human land-use, turning millions of acres of grass into shrubland.

Chihuahuan rivers were damned in the early 20th century to help supply growing populations, with devastating effects on local ecology. The massive Rio Grande delta was desiccated by the end of the 20th century, and many freshwater ponds were buried under massive new reservoirs.

The third largest spring in Texas, the Goodenough Spring, was one of many destroyed when reservoirs covered them. Its native fish species, the Amistad gambusia, was declared extinct in 1987 after captive breeding attempts failed.

The natural grasses of the Chihuahuan desert turned out to be ideal grazing land for the cattle of Anglo-American and Mexican settlers. Before a 1934 act regulating grazing, cattle were allowed roam freely, eating grasses and trampling shoots with their hooves.

Cattle grazing continues, especially in New Mexico and Texas. While many ranchers cooperate with environmental groups to forage their cattle in a sustainable way, many others do not. Unfortunately, despite attempts made to heal lands that suffer from overgrazing, sometimes a area is too far gone. Once the topsoil is totally stripped away and the land has turned over to shrubland, it is almost impossible to restore it to native grassland.

While ranching historically did lead to severe environmental degradation, today it has served as a unexpected refuge as more destructive forms of development occur in the desert. Conversion of old grazing lands into farmland in Mexico has led to severe population declines in migratory grassland birds.

Sustainable ranching preserves larges tracts of land with little human habitation, land that can serve as habitat for many animals that could not survive if the land was turned into housing, or farmland. Birds use ranches across the US and northern Mexico as wintering grounds before journeying north.

THE BORDER

THE FUTURE

Climate change could change precipitation patterns in the Chihuahuan desert. Not only is this critical for groundwater that feeds natural springs and streams, but it also effects human agriculture. Low groundwater levels already are stressing croplands in and around the desert, and as developmental pressures worsen, climate change becomes even more dangerous.

Changing temperatures will cause biomes to shift from their historic niches. Plants and animals will move to follow the climates they are adapted to. This can be difficult and dangerous, especially where humans have created barriers to that movement like with developed land. Additionally, invasive species are disrupting native ecoystems.

Preserving biodiversity has never been more important. History has shown that development and climate change together are too much for a ecosystem to handle. It has also shown that traditional lifestyles can help desert species survive, and that resources can be used sustainably.

The legacy of centuries of warfare, politics, and division still scar this land, but never before has cooperation been so important. If we want to provide a future for the people and animals of this beautiful land in the future, we have to start today.

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Story Map made by Carl Churchill. Photo sources are listed underneath the images.

Historic photos from D.R. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México through  Mediateca 

Administrative Borders, Ocean and Land areas, Populated Places, and terrain from  Natural Earth .

Additional terrain from Shaded Relief Archive and derived from GMTED data (USGS).

Protected lands from UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2021), Protected Planet: The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), 2021, Cambridge, UK: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Available at:  www.protectedplanet.net .

Roads from Meijer, J.R., Huijbegts, M.A.J., Schotten, C.G.J. and Schipper, A.M. (2018): Global patterns of current and future road infrastructure. Environmental Research Letters, 13-064006. Data is available at  www.globio.info 

Land Cover from ESRI through ESRI Living Atlas.

Interactive web basemaps made with  Mapbox .

Additional populated places, protected lands, fences, and waterbodies from  OpenStreetMap .

NOAA National Centers for Environmental information, Climate at a Glance: Global Time Series, published July 2021, retrieved on July 21, 2021 from https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/

“Breve Reseña Histórica.” Chihuahua.gob.mx, 2014. http://chihuahua.gob.mx/Conoce-Chihuahua/Breve-resena-historica. 

Castiglia, Peter J., and Peter J. Fawcett. “Large Holocene Lakes and Climate Change in the Chihuahuan Desert.” Geology 34, no. 2 (2006): 113. https://doi.org/10.1130/g22036.1. 

“Chihuahuan Desert Ecoregion (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed July 20, 2021. https://www.nps.gov/im/chdn/ecoregion.htm. 

“Climate Change and the Chihuahuan Desert (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed July 20, 2021. https://www.nps.gov/articles/chihuahuan-desert-climate-change.htm. 

Cotera, Mauricio, and Gary P Bell et al. “Ecoregional Conservation Assessment of the Chihuahuan Desert .” conservationgateway.org. WWF, July 2004. https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPlanning/SettingPriorities/EcoregionalReports/Documents/Chihuahuan%20Desert%20Report.pdf. 

Diccionario De Nombres geográficos. Aguascalientes: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática, 1992. 

“Grassland Birds in Crisis.” Migratory Bird Joint Ventures, July 29, 2019. https://mbjv.org/grassland-birds-in-crisis/. 

Schmal, John P. “Indigenous Chihuahua: A War Zone for Three Centuries.” Indigenous Mexico, October 11, 2019. https://indigenousmexico.org/chihuahua/indigenous-chihuahua-a-war-zone-for-three-centuries-2/.