When I read the scientific term 'riparian', I think of of wetland forests and swamps encroaching on a lake or river. Thus, these scenes came as a surprise ....
This is a rather blah photo [all I have is a jpg to work with] I took of Lone Pine Creek, Inyo County, California in late winter but it illustrates a riparian area in a cold desert. The riparian area is a narrow band of shrubby riparian trees (water birch,
Betula occidentalis) surrounded by desert scrub. In summer the riparian vegetation is an oasis of highly productive life in an otherwise harsh environment.
Lone Pine Creek_BW by
Bill de Jager, on Flickr
Here's a good example of a larger
riparian area in a hot desert - the San Pedro River in the Sonoran Desert, southern Arizona, U.S.A. The large trees are Fremont cottonwood (
Populus fremontii).
[Edited to change the photo to monochrome, in keeping with the topic]