The Rann of Kutch seasonal salt marsh is a vast expanse of saline mudflats spanning the India-Pakistan border, lying mostly within Gujarat's Kutch district in India and extending into Pakistan's Sindh province. Its vegetation is shaped by salinity: salt-tolerant grasses, sedges such as Cyperus and Scirpus, mat-forming plants like Cressa cretica and Aeluropus lagopoides, and salt-loving Suaeda shrubs, with scattered larger trees including Salvadora persica, Salvadora oleoides, and Prosopis juliflora rooted on the sandy, elevated islands called bets. The climate is tropical savanna and semi-arid, with searing summer heat that can exceed 50 degrees Celsius and a southwest monsoon (June to September) that floods much of the Rann to roughly half a meter before it dries back to hardpan. This ecoregion is the last refuge of the endangered Indian wild ass, or khur, and hosts one of the world's largest breeding colonies of greater and lesser flamingos, supported by protected areas such as the Indian Wild Ass Sanctuary and Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary. For gardeners in hot, saline settings, drought- and salt-hardy native genera like Salvadora and Tamarix illustrate the kind of plants adapted to such conditions.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 23.8°N, 70.0°E.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
12b-13b
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
12b-13b
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +4.6°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
Flooded Grasslands & Savannas
Realm
Indomalayan
Approximate area
10,771 sq mi
Conservation tier
Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 1)
About the flooded grasslands & savannas biome
Grasslands and savannas subject to seasonal or year-round flooding, including large wetland complexes. Exceptionally productive, they concentrate waterbirds and aquatic life.
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.
Climate-resilient picks · 4
These plants fit this ecoregion today AND remain in range under the mid-century SSP3-7.0 projection. Lead with these for a planting that holds up as the climate shifts.
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.
Related ecoregions
Other flooded grasslands & savannas ecoregions to explore: