Describing Dryland Vegetation Patterns

Math is often described as the science of patterns, which makes it
a natural subject to help in the study of the underlying causes of
patterns found in nature, for example, bands of vegetation that
often occur on gently sloped terrains in certain near-desert
ecosystems worldwide. We are starting to learn more about these
bands' common properties by using mathematical models built on
data, such as rainfall totals and the curvature of the terrain.
Mary Silber talks about these mathematical models of vegetation
bands.