Sub-Tropical Ecosystem

This ecosystem extends in the Rift Valley from Dier Alla area and down until Aqaba areas. It is so called sub-tropical due to the Sudanian penetration in this region. The Dead Sea rift follows the line of a gigantic fault which extends 370 km from the meeting point of the Yarmouk river with the Jordan River in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba, and is part of the great African Rift Valley.

In the northern Ghor, lying north of the Dead Sea, the country’s main river, the Jordan, flows south to the Dead Sea. The northern Ghor is the main agricultural area in Jordan; the principle crops are intensively cultivated fruit and vegetables, irrigated from canals which divert water from the Yarmouk, Zarqa and other rivers. Wadi Araba is mainly composed of stony and gravelly out wash plains and mobile dune desert, with some sabkhas (saline mudflats).

The natural vegetation of the valley plain and lower scarp slopes has been greatly modified by cultivation and grazing in the Jordan Valley, but is more intact in the stonier Wadi Araba: Tropical Sudanian species of tree and dwarf-shrub are prominent in the sparse and very open vegetation, including Accacia, Balanites, Tamarix, Calotropis, Maerua, Salvadora, Orhradenusand Panicum.

Three eco-zones in Jordan are of global importance: The Dead Sea Basin, the Jordan River and the Gulf of Aqaba.