Country

Jordan: 5 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Jordan sits where the Mediterranean world runs out into Arabia, and its five ecoregions tell that story. The northwest highlands carry the Eastern Mediterranean conifer-broadleaf forests, ranked Nature Imperiled, the country's only forest ecoregion and its wet-winter, dry-summer heart. East and south the land drops into the Syrian xeric grasslands and shrublands, then the Mesopotamian shrub desert, the North Arabian desert, and the Red Sea-Arabian Desert shrublands toward Aqaba. Practically all of the country is arid; the mediterranean fringe is small but is where unirrigated trees, vines, and winter-green herbs actually work. Elsewhere the palette is steppe grasses and true desert shrubs, with irrigation carrying anything more ambitious.