Here are Nebraska’s sand dunes under the snow. A hypnotic view of a little-known but extraordinary territory, where ice and wood seem to mingle.
A wild land, Nebraska’s sand hills form a unique ecosystem on Earth, covering more than 50,000 km2. They are located exactly in the center of the North American continent.
Endless prairies and icy fields make up one of the largest and most complex wetlands in the USA, with a diverse range of flora and fauna between 500 and 1000m altitude, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
The thick brown circles you see south of the Lexington dunes are fields of grain and forage crops, contrasted by the snow.
Covering an area of 200,349 km2, Nebraska has a population of just 1,796,619.
It’s the poorest of the United States, with many native American reservations, Iowa, Dakota, Pawnee and Sioux. The region is home to some of the world’s most devastating tornadoes, and violent thunderstorms occur regularly in spring and summer.
The birthplace of Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire and Henry Fonda faces a number of threats to water quality, but the greatest pressure is on wild habitats.
In recent years, habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation have been identified as the main cause of biodiversity loss in the state. Nebraska faces many challenges related to aquatic or terrestrial invasive species, which cause extremely profound economic or biological damage in this fragile area.