Mediterranean riparian scrub

Alluvial Mediterranean tamarisk (Tamarix spp), oleander (Nerium oleander), and chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus ) galleries and thickets, and similar low ligneous formations living in irregularly flooded environments. In climates with severe seasonal drought, such as the Mediterranean, streams can be intensely fluctuant and even temporary; often the flooding temporal pattern is extremely irregular. This can leave riverbeds (or large portions of them) completely dry for long periods, in which often salinity increases during the drought. The hydric requirements of the scrub in such river beds are much lower than those of the willow, poplar or alder riparian forests (habitat G1.3). Under even more extreme conditions pioneer communities of habitat C3.5e are found.

These scrub and thickets are frequent in the areas where summer drought is long and severe, i.e. the thermo- and meso-Mediterranean belts of southern Europe (central and southern Iberia, southern Italy and southern Greece) and the Canary Islands, expanding in North Africa and Middle East along the Saharo-Arabian and Irano-Turanian regions. They include formations of Tamarix ramossissima of stream sides and coastal localities of the Pontic and Steppic areas of the Black Sea shores in SE Europe.

This habitat is rarely forming a dense shrubland due to disturbance regime determined by the floods. The best examples are found in uncontrolled stretches of mature rivers, rivulets or depressions.

Indicators of good quality:

• periodically inundated with flood waters
• bushes distributed scattered, sometimes closing in a more dense thicket
• no signal of timber or firewood exploitation
• no sign of eutrophication due to anthropogenically polluted or enriched flood-waters, with appearance of nitrophilic herbs
• no sign of non-native invaders

Synthesis of Red List assessment

Confidence in the assessment

Pressures and threats