Suggest three reasons why some rainstorms in hot, arid environments result in flash floods.

Flash floods in hot and arid environments pose more of a threat in terms of consequences than in other environments. Firstly, an arid environment is an area that receives less than 250mm of rainfall per annum. This makes land very dry and not ideal for the growth of vegetation and farming.

One reason why rainstorms result in flash floods is that due to the lack of vegetation from the lack of rainfall, rain is not absorbed by the soil and instead tends to run in any direction it can on the top, once it picks up speed it also has a hard time stopping due to the lack of trees and other vegetation to stop it in its tracks. In arid environments, when it does rain it tends to rain heavily as a result of thunderstorms and therefore it is more likely to come a flash flood due to the combination of both heavy rainfall and a hard top soil ideal for run off. This decreases the amount of lag time, the time between rainfall and flooding. Also, the presence of wadis which are naturally formed by erosion make way for an ideal canyon shaped basin for flash floods to flow through, also previous river basins formed by flash floods make for more flow when other flash floods occur. Lastly, hot and arid environments tend to be sparsely populated and when they are, have poor infrastructure. Huts built with wood or poor steel will not act as an obstacle for flash floods and therefore not make any effort in stopping it.