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Changjiang Plain evergreen forests
Changjiang Plain evergreen forests
RESOLVE 657
The Changjiang Plain evergreen forests cover the plain of the Yangtze River (Changjiang) in eastern China, stretching roughly 1,000 km of low-lying alluvial land from where the river leaves the Three Gorges in the west to its mouth at the East China Sea near Shanghai, a landscape dotted with shallow lakes including Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake, and Dongting Lake. The floodplains and adjacent hills once supported broadleaved evergreen forests dominated by evergreen oaks (Cyclobalanopsis) and chinquapins (Castanopsis), though most flat ground has long been converted to rice paddies, with remaining areas as scrub or developed. The climate is humid subtropical (Köppen Cfa), with hot summers, no month averaging below 0 °C, and precipitation relatively even through the year. One of the most densely populated regions on Earth, it retains rich biodiversity in surviving uplands and wetlands: Huang Shan alone holds about 1,650 higher plant species, and the seasonal wetlands shelter migratory waterfowl and endangered aquatic species such as the Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis) and Chinese sturgeon (Acipenser sinensis).
Changjiang Plain evergreen forests location on world map
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 30.7°N, 116.4°E.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
Current zone range (2011–2040)
9b-12a
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CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
10a-12a
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Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +4.5°F by mid-century. SSP3-7.0 (current trajectory) · CHELSA v2.1 bio06 sampled across 10 of 10 points within this ecoregion's bounding box.
At a glance
Dominant biome
Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
Realm
Palearctic
Approximate area
169,143 sq mi
Conservation tier
Nature Imperiled (Dinerstein NNH 4)
About the temperate broadleaf & mixed forests biome
Four-season forests of deciduous hardwoods — oak, maple, beech — often mixed with conifers, shaped by warm summers and cold winters. Trees leaf out in spring and color in autumn; the generally fertile soils have made these forests heavily settled and farmed.
Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion
Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's CHELSA-derived current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.
Currently suited · 103
These plants fit the ecoregion as it is today, but the mid-century projection moves them outside their stated zone range — plan for them to struggle by 2070.
Collections for this ecoregion
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.
Sources
Summary drawn from One Earth, Wikipedia.
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Climate-aware plant planning — every plant checked against your zone now and in 2050.
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