Country

Qatar: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

All of Qatar lies within one ecoregion, the Arabian-Persian Gulf coastal plain desert, the low, hot desert strip that rims the Gulf. It is an honest description of the peninsula: flat limestone and sand country with sparse dwarf shrubs and salt-tolerant plants, extreme summer heat intensified by Gulf humidity, mild winters, and very little rain in any season. Salinity is as defining as drought, in the soil, the groundwater, and the air. Unirrigated gardening is effectively limited to the native desert and coastal halophyte palette; everything else in Qatar's green spaces runs on irrigation, and the plants that hold up best are the heat- and salt-proof desert and coastal species the ecoregion itself supplies.