Inland saline or brackish helophyte bed

This habitat includes helophytes beds developing in inland saline or brackish lakes, ponds and other standing or slowly flowing waters (such as saline Mediterranean rivers) subjected to dry out during summer. The habitat may include, depending by the hydrological regime, emergent communities dominated by species tolerant to brackish or saline conditions such as Bolboschoenus maritimus, Typha laxmannii, Typha domingensis, Phragmites australis, Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani, Schoenoplectus triqueter, or communities dominated by tall rushes, such as Juncus maritimus, Juncus acutus and Juncus subulatus. The communities are species-poor and often mono-dominant. Similar communities in dune slacks are considered part of habitats B1.8a or B1.8b.

In warmer and continental parts of Europe, during the hot summer, the water level in the wetlands may decrease and the water may even completely disappear. Several species inhabiting this habitat, especially reed, may survive even under such hypersaline conditions. Bolboschoenus maritimus is the most widespread middle tall helophyte on the water margins of wetlands with different levels of salinity, growing in a range from freshwater to hypersaline water. These communities mainly inhabit the water fringes, but when a wetland dries out during the year, they may expand and cover the whole bottom of a lake or pond.

This habitat is typically in contact with the habitats C1.5 (Permanent inland saline and brackish waters), C3.5 (Periodically exposed saline shores with pioneer and ephemeral vegetation) and E6 (inland salt steppes). It is distributed in the arid continental and Mediterranean parts of Europe.

Indicators of quality:

• Minimum salinity around 0.5 ‰
• Natural high electrical conductivity of the water
• No alteration of the natural salinity range
• Dominance of halophytic emergent species rather than freshwater emergent species
• Absence of overgrowing with shrubs and trees
• No signs of eutrophication and dominance of ruderal species
• No indicator of negative anthropogenic influence (e.g. regulation of the water level, chemical pollution)

Synthesis of Red List assessment

Confidence in the assessment

Pressures and threats