Physical Geography: Geomorphology, Climate, and Biogeography
Physical geography in the Bagrut tests process reasoning: why Israel's landforms, rainfall, and plant communities vary from the Hermon to Eilat. Expect questions that ask you to explain a pattern, not just name it.
Landform units
Israel runs north–south through five structural units: the coastal plain with kurkar ridges and sand; the western mountain belt (Galilee, Samaria, Judea) built of limestone and chalk with karst and terraces; the Jordan Rift Valley, a pull-apart basin below sea level; the Negev and Arava, with loess, bare rock, and erosional surfaces; and the Eilat mountains with igneous and metamorphic rock. Drainage divides split between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea/Arava basins.
Climate controls
The north and center have a Mediterranean climate (Csa): rain November–April, dry summer. Rainfall falls from about 1,000 mm in the Upper Galilee to under 50 mm in the Arava. Controls are latitude, distance from the Mediterranean, orographic uplift, and rain shadow. The Sharav is a hot, dry easterly wind; snow is rare except on Mount Hermon.
Biogeography
Vegetation belts follow rainfall: Mediterranean maquis and garigue above roughly 400 mm; Irano-Turanian steppe in the semi-arid belt; Saharo-Arabian desert in the Negev; Sudanian species penetrate the Arava. A chorotype is the geographic origin of a species.
Worked example
Why is Jerusalem wetter than Jericho, only about 30 km east? Moist westerlies meet the Judean hills; forced ascent cools the air and produces condensation and rain. East of the ridge the air descends, warms, and dries. Jericho sits in the rain shadow of the rift valley.
Traps
Do not label all of Israel as Mediterranean; aridity is not the same as heat; do not confuse kurkar with limestone; and always check whether a rainfall contrast is caused by the rain shadow.