Country

Yemen: 10 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Ten ecoregions reach Yemen, all of them shaped by aridity, but not all equally severe. The interior belongs to the great Arabian desert systems, the Arabian desert, Arabian sand desert, and South Arabian plains and plateau desert. The country's distinctive tier is Afrotropic: the Southwest Arabian Escarpment shrublands and woodlands, highland xeric scrub, and montane woodlands and grasslands, where elevation wrings enough moisture from the air to support real woodland and terrace agriculture. The South Arabian fog woodlands and the Socotra Island xeric shrublands, the latter ranked Nature Imperiled, depend on coastal fog rather than rain. Planting here is a question of catching water, on highland terraces, in wadis, or from fog, with drought-adapted shrubs and succulents as the baseline.