A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above the river. Defined as long and narrow forest vegetation associated with rivers, gallery forests are structurally and floristically heterogeneous.
Gallery forest of the Finke River, Australia
A gallery forest composed of she-oaks, along Prospect Creek in Western Sydney.
Gallery forest along the Awash River in the Afar region of Ethiopia
A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. In some regions, the terms riparian woodland, riparian forest, riparian buffer zone, riparian corridor, and riparian strip are used to characterize a riparian zone. The word riparian is derived from Latin ripa, meaning "river bank".
A well-preserved natural riparian strip on a tributary to Lake Erie
Thick riparian vegetation along the Pisuerga River in Spain
Riparian zone along Trout Creek in the Trout Creek Mountains, part of the Burns Bureau of Land Management District in southeastern Oregon. The creek provides critical habitat for trout.
A riparian zone in Western Sydney
