Home
Amur meadow steppe

Amur meadow steppe

Amur meadow steppe
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.
RESOLVE 741
Palearctic
47,590 sq mi
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Landscape type
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Plant region
Palearctic
Region footprint
47,590 sq mi
Habitat pressure
Nature Could Recover (Dinerstein NNH 3)
Use this as the broad planting pattern for the region: Grasslands and savannas subject to seasonal or year-round flooding, including large wetland complexes. Exceptionally productive, they concentrate waterbirds and aquatic life. For garden decisions, pair that context with the plant list below, then narrow by your site's light, water, soil, and mature-size constraints.

Range & origins

Amur meadow steppe location on world map
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 47.6°N, 133.0°E.
Region through time
Modern footprint
RESOLVE 2017 maps 47,590 sq mi
This boundary is a modern ecological footprint for Amur meadow steppe, not a permanent line on the planet. It is useful for today's plant and wildlife context because it follows recurring vegetation, climate, landform, and disturbance patterns.
Why here
flooded grasslands & savannas conditions
The region sits in the Palearctic realm and is classed as flooded grasslands & savannas. Elevation, moisture, fire, soils, coasts, and human land use can all make the real landscape more varied than a single map color suggests.
Change pressure
Nature Could Recover
Plotwright shows this as the current RESOLVE footprint. Over decades to centuries, warming, disturbance, invasive species, land use, and restoration can move the living edge of a region even when the reference map stays fixed.

Planting collections

Finished planting recipes where every member can handle this region's climate range. The fit badge uses the collection's most sensitive plant, so a resilient collection is a safer starting point than any single standout.
Climate-resilient · 2 plantes
Bright shade foundation
A part-shade planting with shrub structure and low foliage contrast.
Annabelle hydrangea
Coral bells
+4
Climate-resilient · 8 plantes
Climate-resilient natives for warming zones (eastern NA)
A pollinator-supporting palette of eastern North American natives with broad hardiness ranges and wide native distributions. Built for gardeners who want a planting that can handle warming zones without giving up wildlife value.
Switchgrass
Little bluestem
Common milkweed
Black-eyed Susan
Wild bergamot
Sweet Joe-Pye weed
Cutleaf coneflower
New England aster
+5
Climate-resilient · 9 plantes
Native pollinator border (eastern US)
A continuous-bloom native pollinator strip for eastern North America. Covers spring through frost with host + nectar plants spanning monarchs, native bees, hummingbirds, and specialist Lepidoptera. Little bluestem provides the matrix grass + Hesperiidae host.
Butterfly weed
Common milkweed
Purple coneflower
Wild bergamot
Scarlet bee balm
Little bluestem
Sweet Joe-Pye weed
Swamp sunflower
Smooth blue aster
Climate-resilient · 4 plantes
Sunny pollinator border
A durable sunny border with summer bloom, seedheads, and upright winter texture.
English lavender
Purple coneflower
Black-eyed Susan
Switchgrass

Similar planting regions

Browse other regions with a similar hot, dry-summer rhythm. Their plant lists can suggest species and combinations worth comparing.
RESOLVE 742 - Palearctic
Bohai Sea saline meadow
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.
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Zones 9a-10a
+5.2°F by 2070
4,462 sq mi
NNH tier 3
RESOLVE 743 - Palearctic
Nenjiang River grassland
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.
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Zones 5b-6b
+6.4°F by 2070
8,956 sq mi
NNH tier 4
RESOLVE 744 - Palearctic
Nile Delta flooded savanna
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.
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Zones 11a-11b
+3.9°F by 2070
19,638 sq mi
NNH tier 4
RESOLVE 745 - Palearctic
Saharan halophytics
The Saharan halophytics ecoregion is a scattered network of low-lying saline depressions and wetlands strung across North Africa, spanning Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Western Sahara. It covers chotts and sebkhas such as Chott Melrhir and Chott el Djerid, along with the vast Qattara Depression and the spring-fed Siwa Oasis, supporting a mosaic of salt pans, seasonal salt lakes, salt marshes, reed beds, and oases. The vegetation is azonal and salt-adapted, dominated by halophytes including picklegrass (Salicornia), saltbush (Atriplex), the subshrub Salsola, Halocnemum strobilaceum, and white wormwood (Artemisia herba-alba). The climate is a hot desert (Köppen BWh) with hot-month averages around 29 to 35 degrees Celsius and only about 10 to 100 millimetres of rain per year. The depressions draw notable wildlife, with the Dorcas gazelle as a flagship species alongside the vulnerable Cuvier's gazelle and Houbara bustard. For gardeners working salty or arid ground, the region's native saltbush (Atriplex) and aromatic Artemisia are familiar drought- and salt-tolerant genera.
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Zones 10b-12b
+3.6°F by 2070
20,859 sq mi
NNH tier 2
RESOLVE 746 - Palearctic
Suiphun-Khanka meadows and forest meadows
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.
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Zones 5b-7a
+7.2°F by 2070
13,032 sq mi
NNH tier 3
RESOLVE 747 - Palearctic
Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh
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.
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Zones 9b-11b
+4.7°F by 2070
13,743 sq mi
NNH tier 4

Sources & citations

Cite this page
For lesson plans, articles, or regional planting notes that use this Plotwright page. To cite the underlying ecoregion framework or a specific editorial profile, use the source cards below.
Plotwright. (n.d.). Amur meadow steppe (Amur meadow steppe). Retrieved 2026, June 14, from https://plotwright.garden/regions/resolve-741
Sources for this region
This page cites Plotwright first for the compiled view, then lists the upstream framework, climate, and editorial source pages so readers can cite the original material directly.
RESOLVE 2017 Terrestrial Ecoregions (Dinerstein et al.)
Primary ecoregion framework
Backs 4 fields
RESOLVE id
Biome + realm
Area
NNH tier
One Earth
One Earth
Backs 1 field
Editorial summary
Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundation
Backs 1 field
Summary cross-check