I bet the water in that scene is temporary though...that's an extremely dry climate and presumably by spring most of that water has dried up. It's what was leftover from their brief monsoon rains. The area that video was taken supposed gets about 4" a year.

I'm surprised this species hasn't become a pest in parts of the western US. Might be a good thing it was so obscure it was never imported, if that is the case. Some of the forms have showy red male flowers. I actually first stumbled upon it reading a page about Middle Eastern flora. There can't be many other tree species that range across the Mediterranean basin, down to Kenya, and up to the Gobi Desert and Mongolia!

David, out in the high deserts of Wyoming, tho those areas might get only 5-8" a yr, the snowmelt from nearby mountains can keep running water in the streams a long time. I was the Cody, WY area this past summer & rivers were high in late-July! Irrigated farms/croplands adjacent to the creeks/rivers were lush. The silvery Russian olives grow big there & were beautiful along the drainages.

Quaking aspen has a huge range too -- kinda similar to the Asian poplar.

True, but the Rockies of Wyoming are a lot warmer, wetter and lusher than equivalent mountain areas near Mongolia and the Gobi desert...especially in winter. I doubt much of the water in that video is from snowmelt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson,_Wyoming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohhot#Climate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulaanbaatar

Thanks for the links. The images of the tree are appealing:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Populus+euphratica&t=ffnt&iax=images&ia=images

Here's an image that really fits the narrative:

That was a cool video

Looks like they only grow by water.

Yes poplars and willows do like wet feet

"Looks like they only grow by water."
In this part of the Gobi desert, sure...because you need to be in a stream bed to have much soil moisture at all, in a place with such little rain. It's like the desert southwest below 3000 ft....if you see non-succulent trees, you know there's probably surface water nearby. OTOH I think elsewhere in their range, with somewhat higher rainfall like the Mediterranean basin for example, they probably grow along with other trees in normal, non-riparian forests.

Here's one in Israel that looks like it's on top of a sand dune: http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-israel-coastal-plain-euphrates-poplar-trees-populus-euphratica-in-15715517.html