Saharan halophytics

The Amur meadow steppe stretches across two sections of the middle Amur River valley, straddling the Russian Far East (Amur Oblast and Khabarovsk Krai) and northeastern China (Heilongjiang province). Because the land is a flat floodplain on alluvial soil with a high water table and frequent flooding, it has remained largely free of forest, instead supporting extensive wetlands of bogs and grasslands; wet meadows are dominated by reed grasses (Calamagrostis) alongside many members of the parsley family (Apiaceae) and Spiraea shrubs, with Mongolian oak and Daurian birch also present. The climate is humid continental of the cool-summer subtype (Koppen Dwb), with long, cold winters and short, cool summers. The region is a stronghold for threatened wildlife, including the red-crowned crane, Oriental stork, and Blakiston's eagle-owl, while the kaluga sturgeon serves as the ecoregion's flagship species. Much of it has been converted to cropland and only a small fraction is protected, within reserves such as Khingan and Bolshekhekhtsirsky.

The Bohai Sea saline meadow is a Flooded Grasslands and Savannas ecoregion in the Palearctic realm, confined to China, where it rims the crescent-shaped shore of Bohai Bay on the northwest of the Bohai Sea. It occupies the actively growing coastal deltas built where the Yellow River (Huang He) and the Luan River discharge their heavy sediment loads into the sea. Vegetation grades seaward from interior grasslands of cogon grass (Imperata cylindrica) through salt-tolerant meadows of seepweed (Suaeda) to bare intertidal mudflats, with former freshwater reed and sedge marshes now largely converted to rice paddies and aquaculture. The climate is humid continental with hot summers and cold, dry winters (Koppen Dwa), marked by large seasonal temperature swings. These saline meadows and mudflats are a critical stopover on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway; the Oriental stork is the flagship species, and the ecoregion is one of only a few breeding sites worldwide for Saunders's gull, though it remains under heavy pressure from coastal development.

The Nenjiang River grassland is a Flooded Grasslands and Savannas ecoregion in northeastern China, covering the low wetlands of the lower Nen (Nenjiang) River across the Songhua-Nenjiang plain of Manchuria. Ringed by the Greater Khingan to the north, the Lesser Khingan to the west, and the Changbai Mountains to the south, this poorly drained basin forms a mosaic of seasonally flooded grassland, reed-filled lakes, and river channels, with meadows of grasses and sedges and swampy patches of larch (Larix gmelinii) over a birch (Betula) understory, and reed beds of Phragmites communis lining the lake margins. The climate is humid continental (Köppen Dwa), with hot summers, cold winters, and a spring-and-summer rainy season that sends the river into spate and floods the plain. The wetlands are renowned for cranes, hosting six of the world's fifteen crane species, including the endangered red-crowned crane, the vulnerable white-naped crane, and the critically endangered Siberian crane, with the remaining habitat protected by the Zhalong and Jilin Momoge nature reserves, both Ramsar wetlands of international importance.

The Nile Delta flooded savanna lies entirely within Egypt, spanning the Nile Delta where the river meets the Mediterranean and following the Nile's floodplain roughly 1,100 kilometres upstream to the Aswan High Dam. It is a wetland and floodplain mosaic whose once-dominant papyrus sedge (Cyperus papyrus) has largely been replaced by farmland; characteristic plants today include common reed (Phragmites australis), bulrushes (Typha), and salt-tolerant sea rush (Juncus maritimus) near the coast. The climate is hot and arid, with little rainfall that falls mainly in the cooler winter months. The delta and its riverine marshes form one of the world's great bird migration corridors between the Palearctic and Afrotropical realms, hosting white storks, great white pelicans, and other waterbirds, while the critically endangered Egyptian tortoise serves as the ecoregion's flagship species. Less than one percent of the ecoregion is officially protected, and the loss of natural flooding after the Aswan Dam has degraded its papyrus swamps and other marshes.

The Suiphun-Khanka meadows and forest meadows ecoregion centers on Lake Khanka, straddling the border between Heilongjiang Province in China and Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East, extending along the Ussuri and Suifen (Razdolnaya) river valleys. Largely unforested, flat, and marshy, it is a mosaic of wet meadows, grassy bogs, and reed beds, with Manchurian water-rice, reed grass, and sedges near the water and drier prairie-like grasslands beyond; gallery forests carry Mongolian oak and Dahurian birch alongside Manchurian and Siberian apricots, almond cherry, and Chinese hawthorn. The climate is humid continental with cool summers (Koppen Dwb), bringing long, cold winters and short, mild summers. A probable refuge during the late Pleistocene glaciation, the region supports more than 700 terrestrial plant species and is a vital migratory-bird stopover, hosting the red-crowned crane as its flagship species along with Oriental storks; protected areas include Russia's Khanka Nature Reserve and China's Xingkai Lake National Nature Reserve. Among its native flora are ornamental kin familiar to gardeners, including Komarov's lotus and English iris.

The Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh, better known as the Mesopotamian Marshes, is a Flooded Grasslands and Savannas ecoregion at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, spanning eastern Iraq and southwestern Iran where the Tigris, Euphrates, and Karun rivers spread across a vast deltaic plain. It is a mosaic of swamps, freshwater lakes, and seasonally flooded plains dominated by dense beds of reeds (Phragmites australis), cattail rushes (Typha domingensis), and papyrus sedge (Cyperus papyrus), with riparian willow (Salix acmophylla), Euphrates poplar (Populus euphratica), and tamarisk (Tamarix) fringing the islands and riverbanks. The climate is hot and arid, with extreme swings from summer highs near 50 degrees Celsius to winter lows around freezing; the marshes are fed by winter flooding and spring snowmelt from the northern mountains, then shrink during the dry summers. A globally important area for birds and the home of the smooth-coated otter, the wetlands were largely drained in the late twentieth century, partially re-flooded after 2003, and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, though upstream dams and drought keep them fragmented. For gardeners drawn to water-margin plants, the region is the wild home of ornamental reeds, cattails, papyrus, and willows that thrive in warm, seasonally wet ground.