Country

Azerbaijan: 4 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Four Palearctic ecoregions divide Azerbaijan. The Caucasus mixed forests clothe the Greater Caucasus slopes and the Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests hold the humid Talysh corner in the southeast, both temperate broadleaf belts ranked Nature Could Recover. Between and below them lie two drier ecoregions ranked Nature Imperiled: the Eastern Anatolian montane steppe in the west and the Azerbaijan shrub desert and steppe across the Kura-Aras lowlands. The result is a compact country split between wooded mountain flanks and an arid interior plain. Growers on the forested slopes and the Hyrcanian fringe can lean on temperate broadleaf trees and a moist-woodland understory, while the lowlands call for steppe grasses and drought-tolerant shrubs adapted to hot, dry summers.