Talk:Great Basin Desert

largest desert??
according to List of North American deserts it is a common mistake to think this is the biggest...

see talk page []

cheers --Earlypsychosis (talk) 07:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you read what it says? The claim is for the largest in the US.  Unless Mexico became part of the US, you have offered no proof that this is not the largest in the US.  Your information is just to a list that says it is not the largest in NA. That is a different claim. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:32, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Map
The map is confusing at best, and possibly just plain wrong. For one thing, none of the colored regions include "Desert" in the map key. The only region that seems to correspond with the actual desert is labeled "Great Basin Provence" ["Provence" explanation in caption is vague, ambiguous, and only serves to add to the confusion]. The region labeled "Great Basin" overlaps much of the Mohave desert, and the "Basin & Range" overlaps other deserts as well. ~:74.60.29.141 (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2013 (UTC) [modified]

Area
The area of 39,505 sq mi (102,317 km2) in the infobox is incorrect, being at least two-thirds too small. Since there is no agreed upon definition of the boundary of the Great Basin Desert, I suggest that the area of the Central Basin and Range ecoregion 119,224.584 sqmi with a footnote explaining the derivation (EPA GIS files). Lynn (SLW) (talk) 13:59, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Endangered Species
user:Hike395 Some (most?) of the endangered species in the article are in the Mojave, not the Great Basin Desert. Specifically the Nitrophila mohavensis, the Ash Meadows blazingstar and the pupfish and one or two others. And, the list is missing the Cui-ui listed in the Great Basin article. I suggest we identify the T&E species in separate sections for both Great Basin and Mohove desert articles, then wiki-link to those sections in the Great Basin article. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 17:29, 15 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The Amargosa Desert and Ash Meadows are part of the Mojave? They are near the boundary -- I'm not sure which desert they belong to. Perhaps that is reason enough to leave out those species (although the amount of endemism in Ash Meadows is quite remarkable). Go ahead and edit -- if I think something is wrong, I'll speak up. —hike395 (talk) 02:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose that we merge Central Basin and Range ecoregion and Great Basin shrub steppe into this article, Great Basin Desert.

The central argument is that all three of these articles cover the almost same ecological region, just with different names. All three of these cover the desert between the Sierra Nevada of eastern California and the Wasatch Range of Utah --- the desert that is roughly the northern 2/3 of Nevada and the northwestern quarter of Utah.

The proliferation of names for approximately the same region can be explained by looking at the history of the definition of ecoregions in this area. Ecoregions for the U.S. were proposed by J.M. Omernik, of the USGS, in 1987. . You can see Omernik's original ecoregion #13 in a map in his 1995 paper.

The EPA and the USGS based their U.S. ecoregions on Omernik's work,, changing the boundaries somewhat, defining subregions, and renaming 13 the "Central Basin and Range ecoregion". In parallel, the World Wildlife Fund defined their own ecoregions, also based on Omernik's work. They separated a small high-elevation portion of ecoregion 13 into a separate ecoregion, and called the rest the "Great Basin shrub steppe".

Meanwhile, the "Great Basin Desert" is a commonly understood name for the desert region. The National Park service defines it by its ecology, and shows a map that is roughly the same as ecoregion 13. C.E. Soulard of the USGS says that the Central Basin and Range ecoregion "encompasses" the Great Basin Desert, and the map in Soulard's report even labels the ecoregion with "Great Basin Desert".

In summary, all three terms, "Great Basin Desert", "Central Basin and Range ecoregion", and "Great Basin shrub steppe" refer to the same general ecoregion concept, and have approximately the same boundaries. Thus, I propose a merge.

The lack of agreement on the exact ecoregion is not surprising. Omernik says, "There is a strong tendency, however, for people mapping ecological regions to base each boundary on a single determining characteristic, and an even stronger tendency to  choose  that  characteristic  based  on  their area of specialization or background. Furthermore, this is usually done, whether consciously or subconsciously, with  a  desire  to  have  the  region  serve  a  particular purpose." In the Wikipedia context, this means that ecoregions from different organizations have a strong component of that organization's point-of-view. To reach a neutral point of view, we need to integrate information across multiple definitions of ecoregions.

Finally, I believe that combining these articles will help our readers. To be concrete, User:LynnWysong and I have written a draft of a combined article, at Draft:Great Basin Desert. Notice how we combine information from the NPS (on climate and altitudinal zonation) with the EPA (about sub-ecoregions). This makes the article much more complete. If we leave the articles separate, we would need to split this information across Great Basin Desert and Central Basin and Range ecoregion (because the sub-ecoregions are defined by the EPA as part of the latter). This forces our readers to read two articles to get a complete picture. Much more likely -- 99% of the readers don't understand the multiple definitions of ecoregions, so they would read only one article and miss the big picture.

If we can get consensus on the merge, then we would copy the Draft:Great Basin Desert to Great Basin Desert, and replace Central Basin and Range ecoregion and Great Basin shrub steppe with redirects. I am proposing keeping Great Basin Desert as the article title, because I believe it is better than the other two titles along three of the five naming criteria described at WP:TITLE --- "Great Basin Desert" is more Recognizable, Natural, and Concise than the other two titles.

Feedback on the merge and on the draft are more than welcome. Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 16:49, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Discussion of proposal
Support. This is consistent with the Mojave Desert article. The Mojave Basin and Range ecoregion redirects to it. Lynn (SLW) (talk) 12:32, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Conclusion
Looks like there isn't any opposition after 7 days. I'll perform the merge. —hike395 (talk) 19:54, 31 July 2015 (UTC)