Country

Pakistan: 16 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Sixteen ecoregions meet in Pakistan, and the split is stark: deserts and xeric shrublands such as the Thar desert, Indus Valley desert, Baluchistan xeric woodlands, and Registan-North Pakistan sandy desert cover the lowlands, while the Himalayan and Karakoram margins carry Himalayan subtropical pine forests, Western Himalayan broadleaf and subalpine conifer forests, and alpine meadows up to the Karakoram-West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe. The Rann of Kutch seasonal salt marsh adds a flooded-grassland fringe in the southeast. The country straddles the Indomalayan and Palearctic realms, so plant traditions from both apply. Gardening character is set by aridity almost everywhere below the mountains: drought-adapted, heat-tolerant plantings with careful irrigation, shifting abruptly to cold-hardy conifer and broadleaf palettes in the northern valleys.