The Dakhla National Park (PNDKL) occupies a large area of the province of Oued Eddahab, a province located on the Saharan borders of Atlantic Morocco. This desert is mainly characterized by two major physiographic units precisely covered by the National Park: a coastal strip continuously subject to ocean influence and an immense interior dotted with sandstone mounds, often with elongated relief.

The regional climate is very arid with an oceanic climate that attenuates its extremes. Rain is not regular there, and so scarce that biological life cannot really depend on it. The importance of the boreal maritime trade wind is the most determining factor that will induce the very particular characteristics of this “cold” coastal desert. Moderate temperatures, high relative humidity, high cloud cover and wind frequency shape the environments and local biocoenoses. You have to go far inland to find the great Saharan climate with its terrible thermal differences and its overwhelming summer heats (especially on the Tiris plateau, a little north-east of Adrar Souttouf, where you can go from 65° to - 0° in a few hours!)

The oscillation of the continental and maritime air masses that oppose this latitude has not been favorable in recent decades to rainfall, which is already naturally rare. Its gradual reduction has led to the persistence of a cycle of drought which has caused real and worrying desertification. The drying up of these territories over the past thirty years is not a heresy; although we are in a desert regime, drought is not an automatic corollary. The west-east gradient, which sees the moderating influences of the ocean decrease as we go deeper into the land, perfectly testifies to the influence of this drying, which is easily perceptible on the tree-lined and shrubby strata of the region's arid steppes.

The PNDKL is divided into two large geographically distinct territories which therefore cover the two major physiographic units of the region already mentioned. The coastal sector, which will cover both maritime and terrestrial areas, extends over a very particular coastal area, called Aguerguer. Delimited on its Atlantic coast by high cliffs beaten by the waves, this area consists of a string of small ruiniform reliefs, sandstone mounds which, subject to the vagaries of very frequent and powerful winds, have released strange reliefs, strongly cut out and which constitute a major originality. These karstified sandstones, these heavily eroded rocky surfaces do not facilitate the penetration of this sector, whose northern part was once the reign of a large population of Dorcas gazelles, of which some witnesses remain today.

Within the continental limits of the sector (Safia region), there are the large wind sand dunes placed on the reef, isolated and concave, called “barkane”. Their particularity is to be mobile, and singing under certain climatic conditions, the internal curvature being of a parabolic nature, it easily amplifies the slight sound released by the friction of the silica grains which descend along the slope. These sometimes large dune ranges offer a fairly supernatural spectacle in the middle of the extreme flatness of the stony reef on which they seem to rest.

The influence of the ocean, whose close power can be felt, a certain ambient cloudiness, unusual and varied reliefs, this salty humidity that some days sticks to the skin, give this region a very original character, greatly enhanced by the presence of a significant residual terrestrial fauna, such as the Dorcas gazelle, and especially the most exceptional marine fauna, with the monk seal easily observable from the top of the cliffs.

The ocean is here divided between Canarian waters, and the existence of a large body of very particular, cold and very fertile water, whose origin is due to the permanence of an upwelling that extends from the height of Dakhla to that of Cape Verde. These upwelling of cold and deep waters, associated with the current of the Canaries, play a major role in maintaining a fresh local climate, and very high fishing productivity in the area.

The strictly terrestrial sector of the PNDKL mainly occupies the greater Adrar Souttouf region. An immense reef with the inevitable silting up, large hills with a very dark hue jutting out on the horizon, a few dry wadi beds dotted with acacia and caparis, this is the essence of this territory, once so rich in large Saharan fauna, formerly so rich in large Saharan fauna, addax, addax, oryx, mouflon, various gazelle and ostrich, today almost all disappeared. Nevertheless, there are still pockets of survival, where as best as possible, an embryonic settlement is maintained where the bighorn sheep or the dorcas gazelle can still be found. If the woody vegetation has suffered a lot from the years of drought, a little rain moisture is enough for a very numerous and diverse annual flora to appear. The soils are in some places real with the onset of pedogenesis that contrasts with these large areas of gravel or sand.

All this suggests that the local ecological potential is still very good, and can offer the natural provisions necessary for the reconstruction of ecosystems with their flora and fauna.

This desert is a desert with vast, well-defined horizons, where the eye regularly clings to the more or less scattered alignments of the reliefs, or to the fragile silhouette of the acacia tree, a bit lost in the middle of large stony waters. This low “Adrar” desert offers a very particular plastic linked to the contrast of the intensely light shades of the wind surfaces and the deeply dark shades of the tabular morphologies.

Men of all times have traveled these immensity, mainly nomads, Rezzou warriors in the past, soldiers recently, and gazelle hunters always but in very moderate quantities, according to opportunities and especially pastures.