Contribution of geomatics tools to the study of the spatio-temporal evolution of forest stands of the Maamora forest in the face of global changes

¹ Laboratory “Environment, Societies and Territories”, Department of Geography, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco
² Forests and Water Department, 10090, Rabat, Morocco
³ National Forestry School of Engineers, 511, Sale, Morocco
⁴ Laboratory “Valuation of the Environment and Microbial and Plant Resources”, Faculty of Sciences, Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, Morocco
⁵ Laboratoire “Microbial Biotechnologies, Agrosciences and Environment”, Faculty of Sciences Semlalia, University of Cadi Ayyad, Marrakech, Morocco

^* Corresponding author: malki.fouad@uit.ac.ma

Abstract

A better knowledge of the land use of an environment is based on the establishment and comparison of various spatio-temporal situations of the different components of this space. This work is part of a research on the dynamics of the Maamora forest. It aims to show the contribution of the use of geomatics tools in the evaluation of dynamics of forest cover and therefore the evaluation of the impact of global changes and previous forest management methods. The approach followed for the assessment of forest cover in 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014 and 2019, was based on satellite images of Landsat 5 and Landsat 8, with a spatial resolution of 30 m. The classification supervised by the “Support Vector Machine” (SVM) algorithm made it possible to develop forest cover maps for the dates selected and subsequently to evaluate the changes. The classification evaluation showed a Kappa coefficient over 87% and an overall accuracy over 90% for all the selected dates. The results showed a great dynamic of the forest cover between 1984 and 2019 with two significant periods. The first one is 1984-1994 when areas of cork oak and acacia fell respectively by 20% and 39% in favor of other introduced forest species, mainly eucalyptus and pines, which increased respectively by 28% and 74%. For the second period 1994-2019, there was a reversal trend of regression of cork oak’s area towards an increase of 11%, while the area of eucalyptus plantations was generally stabilized and that of pines and acacia stands fell by 37% and 33% respectively. These results make it possible to provide decision-makers with tools for the future management of the space.