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Arctic Cordillera

The Arctic Cordillera is a narrow strip of mountainous terrain along the northeastern edge of Canada, encompassing areas like Baffin Island and Ellesmere Island. This region is known for its rugged mountains, ice caps, and glaciers, covering approximately 242,400 square kilometers.

Tundra

The Tundra extends across northern Canada, Alaska, and Greenland, characterized by its permafrost and lack of trees. This vast, treeless plain spans around 3.5 million square kilometers.

Taiga

Also known as the boreal forest, the Taiga stretches across Canada and Alaska, covering about 17 million square kilometers. It is dominated by coniferous forests.

Hudson Plains

The Hudson Plains, or Plaine D’Hudson, is a low-lying region around Hudson Bay, covering approximately 374,000 square kilometers. This region’s wetlands are crucial for migratory birds.

Northern Forests

Stretching from eastern Canada to the northeastern United States, the Northern Forests cover about 1.2 million square kilometers. These mixed forests are home to a variety of wildlife.

Northwestern Forested Mountains

This region includes the mountainous areas of western Canada and the western United States, covering around 1.6 million square kilometers. Known for its diverse coniferous forests.

Marine West Coast Forest

Found along the Pacific coast from northern California to southern Alaska, this region covers about 264,000 square kilometers. These temperate rainforests receive abundant rainfall.

Eastern Temperate Forests

The Eastern Temperate Forests span from the Gulf of Mexico to southern Canada, covering around 2.6 million square kilometers. This region’s deciduous forests are experiencing shifts in growing seasons.

Great Plains

The Great Plains stretch from Canada through the central United States into Mexico, covering about 3.2 million square kilometers. This vast grassland is crucial for agriculture.

North American Deserts

This region includes the deserts of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, covering around 2.5 million square kilometers. These arid landscapes are experiencing more intense droughts.

Mediterranean California

Located in coastal California, this region covers about 160,000 square kilometers. Known for its unique Mediterranean climate.

Temperate Sierras

This region encompasses the Sierra Nevada and the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, covering around 374,000 square kilometers. These mountainous areas are crucial for water supply.

Tropical Dry Forests

Found in southwestern Mexico, this region covers about 103,000 square kilometers. These forests are adapted to seasonal droughts.

Tropical Wet Forests

The tropical rainforests of Central America and southern Mexico cover approximately 1 million square kilometers. These biodiversity hotspots are facing deforestation and habitat fragmentation.

Climate Change Impacts

Climate change is reshaping all these ecological regions. Rising temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and increased frequency of extreme weather events are affecting biodiversity and ecosystems. Glacial melt, thawing permafrost, shifts in species composition, and more frequent wildfires are some of the general impacts seen across these diverse landscapes. Addressing climate change is crucial to preserving the unique ecological regions of North America.

Explore More Maps of North America

Interested in discovering more about North America’s geography? Check out these maps available on Amazon:

• North America Political Wall Map
• North America Physical Map
• North America National Geographic Adventure Map

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The maps shown here represent a second attempt to holistically classify and map ecological regions across the North American continent (Commission for Environmental Cooperation Working Group, 1997). The mapping from 1997 and 2006 was built upon earlier efforts that had begun individually in all three countries (e.g., Wiken 1986, Omernik 1987). These approaches recognized the need to consider a full range of physical and biotic characteristics to explain ecosystem regions (Omernik 2004). Equally, they recognized that the relative importance of each characteristic varies from one ecological region to another regardless of the hierarchical level. In describing ecoregionalization in Canada, Wiken (1986) stated: Ecological land classification is a process of delineating
and classifying ecologically distinctive areas of the Earth’s surface. Each area can be viewed as a discrete system which has resulted from the mesh and interplay of the geologic, landform, soil, vegetative, climatic, wildlife, water and human factors which may be present. The dominance of any one or a number of these factors varies with the given ecological land unit. This holistic approach to land classification can be applied incrementally on a scale related basis from very site-specific ecosystems to very broad ecosystems.

Determining ecological regions at a continental level is a challenging task. It is difficult, in part, because North America is ecologically diverse and because a nation’s territorial boundaries can be a hindrance to seeing and appreciating the perspectives across the land-mass of three countries. Developing and refining a framework of North American ecological regions has been the product of research and consultation between federal, state, provincial and territorial agencies. These agencies were often government departments, but the initiative also involved nongovernmental groups, universities, and institutes. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) was instrumental in bringing these groups together. The CEC was established in 1994 by Canada, Mexico, and the United States to address environmental concerns common to the three countries. The CEC derives its formal mandate from the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the environmental side
accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

These maps represent the working group’s best consensus on the distribution and characteristics of major ecosystems on all three levels throughout the three North American countries. The methodology incorporated these points in mapping ecological regions:
• Ecological classification incorporates all major components of ecosystems: air, water, land, and biota, including humans.
• It is holistic (“the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”).
• The number and relative importance of factors that are helpful in the delineation process vary from one area to another, regardless of the level of generalization.
• Ecological classification is based on hierarchy—ecosystems are nested within ecosystems as mapped, although, in reality, they may not always nest.
• Such classification integrates knowledge; it is not an overlay process.
• It recognizes that ecosystems are interactive—characteristics of one ecosystem blend with those of another.
• Map lines depicting ecological classification boundaries generally coincide with the location of zones of transition.

A Roman numeral hierarchical scheme has been adopted for different levels of ecological regions. Level I is the coarsest level, dividing North America into 15 broad ecological regions. These highlight major ecological areas and provide the broad backdrop to the ecological mosaic of the continent, putting it in context at global or intercontinental scales. The 50 Level II ecological regions that have been delineated are intended to provide a more detailed description of the large ecological areas nested within the level I regions. Level II ecological regions are useful for national and subcontinental overviews of ecological patterns. At level III, the continent currently contains 182 ecological regions. The level III ecological region map depicts revisions and subdivisions of earlier level I, II, and III ecological regions (CEC 1997, McMahon et al., 2001, Omernik 1987, USEPA 2006; Wiken 1986, Wiken et al., 1996). These smaller divisions enhance regional environmental monitoring, assessment, and reporting, as well as decision-making. Because level III regions are smaller, they allow locally defining characteristics to be identified and more specifically oriented management strategies to be formulated.

Level 1 ecoregions

Level 2 ecoregions

Level 3 ecoregions

Source: epa.gov

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Key facts:

• Only 3 percent of the Earth’s water can be used as drinking water.

• Less than 25 percent of the population using piped drinking water on premises

• 783 million people don’t have access to safe fresh water…

• 3.5 million people die each year from water-related diseases

• Roughly 95 percent of sewage in the developing world is dumped directly into rivers, lakes and coastal waters.

• 80 percent of China’s rivers are too toxic for fish – let alone people.

• 75 percent of industrial waste in the developing worlds is discarded directly into rivers, lakes and coastal waters

• 71 percent of U.S. cities contains higher levels of the carcinogenic chemical hexavalent-chromium that lawmakers recommend.

• 67 percent of water near major poultry farms contain antibiotics.

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