Шөл және дала аймақтарындағы құнарлы өңірлер

Fertile area in a desert environment
the semi desert region

In ecology, an oasis (/oʊ/'/eɪ//s//ɪ//s/; : oases /oʊ/'/eɪ//s//iː//z/) is a fertile area of a desert or semi desert environment that sustains plant life and provides habitat for animals. Surface water and land may be present, or water may only be accessible from wells or underground channels created by humans. In geography, an oasis may be a current or past rest stop on a transportation route, or less than verdant location that nonetheless provides access to underground water through deep wells created and maintained by humans. The word oasis came into English from oasis, from ὄασις, óasis, which in turn is a direct borrowing from Demotic Egyptian. The word for oasis in the latter attested Coptic language (the descendant of Demotic Egyptian) is wahe or ouahe which means a "dwelling place". Oasis in Arabic is wāḥa (واحة).

Oases develop in "hydrologically favored" locations that have attributes such as a high water table, seasonal lakes, or blockaded wadis. Oases are made when sources of freshwater, such as underground rivers or aquifers, irrigate the surface naturally or via man made wells. The presence of water on the surface or underground is necessary and the local or regional management of this essential resource is strategic, but not sufficient to create such areas: continuous human work and know how (a technical and social culture) are essential to maintain such ecosystems. Some of the possible human contributions to maintaining an oasis include digging and maintaining wells, digging and maintaining canals, and continuously removing opportunistic plants that threaten to gorge themselves on water and fertility needed to maintain human and animal food supplies. Stereotypically, an oasis has a "central pool of open water surrounded by a ring of water dependent shrubs and trees which are in turn encircled by an outlying transition zone to desert plants." Rain showers provide subterranean water to sustain natural oases, such as the Tuat. Substrata of impermeable rock and stone can trap water and retain it in pockets, or on long faulting subsurface ridges or volcanic dikes water can collect and percolate to the surface. Any incidence of water is then used by migrating birds, which also pass seeds with their droppings which will grow at the water's edge forming an oasis. It can also be used to plant crops.

Oases in the Middle East and North Africa cover about , however, they support the livelihood of about 10 million inhabitants. The stark ratio of oasis to desert land in the world means that the oasis ecosystem is "relatively minute, rare and precious." In some oases systems, there is "a geometrical system of raised channels that release controlled amounts of the water into individual plots, soaking the soil." Al Ahsa on the Arabian Peninsula shows evidence of human residence dating to the Neolithic. Anthropologically, the oasis is "an area of sedentary life, which associates the city [medina] or village [ksar] with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system." The location of oases has been of critical importance for trade and transportation routes in desert areas; caravans must travel via oases so that supplies of water and food can be replenished. Thus, political or military control of an oasis has in many cases meant control of trade on a particular route. For example, the oases of Awjila, Ghadames and Kufra, situated in modern day Libya, have at various times been vital to both north–south and east–west trade in the Sahara Desert. The location of oases also informed the Darb El Arba'īn trade route from Sudan to Egypt, as well as the caravan route from the Niger River to Tangier, Morocco. These Palm Oases can be found in California, Arizona, Baja California, and Sonora. The oasis is integrated into its desert environment through an often close association with nomadic transhumant livestock farming (very often pastoral and sedentary populations are clearly distinguished). The fertility of the oasis soil is restored by "cyclic organic inputs of animal origin." Challenges for date palm oasis polycultures include "low rainfall, high temperatures, water resources often high in salt content, and high incidence of pests." The oases consist of almost unbroken forests of date palms, divided up into many gardens that are separated by mud walls and intersected by innumerable irrigation and drainage ditches In the shade of the palms are grown many other kinds of fruit trees—oranges, olives, figs, apricots, peaches, pomegranates, and jujubes—interlaced with large grape vines that often hang in festoons from the palm trunks. Beneath the trees are small plots of garden vegetables, barley, and alfalfa. Neither date palms nor other trees are planted with any regularity, and the growth is often so dense that the garden resembles a tropical jungle. Very beautiful are these gardens in the spring, when the apricot and peach trees are in blossom here and there among the palms and the figs and vines are putting forth their leaves. In autumn, when the dates are ripening, the color effects, especially when the tops of the palms are lit up by the last rays of the setting sun, are something that once seen can never be forgotten. The great clusters of fruit, displaying every tint from bright yellow, through orange, vermilion, and maroon, to plum purple and chestnut brown, with their brilliant yellow or rich orange ivory like stalks, contrast superbly with the dull bluish or gray green of the feathery crowns of foliage. It is small wonder that a whole folklore of poetic legends and proverbs has grown up around the date palm in the regions where it flourishes. | source = Kearney, Thomas H. (1906 09 06). Bulletin: Date Varieties and Date Culture in Tunis.