TITLE:
The Site of Biological and Ecological Interest (SBEI) of Ain Asmama: 20 Years Later, What Are Changes?
AUTHORS:
Labbaci Adnane, Kabbachi Belkacem
KEYWORDS:
SBEI; Ain Asmama; LANDSAT; Supervised Classification; Land Cover; Morocco
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geographic Information System,
Vol.5 No.1,
February
21,
2013
ABSTRACT: Concerning this big SBEI (West of Morocco), its bioecological qualities especially its very specific and original flora has attracted naturalists for a long time. This region seems to be relatively preserved still despite the erosion and anthropogenic advanced threats. The most effective method to evaluate the degree of environmental’s change caused by anthropogenic activity and climatic conditions is the multi-date study of land cover. For this, the purpose of this work is to analyze the land cover’s changes evolution in this SBEI from remote sensing technics. Concerning that, we did a triachronical approach on data from 1988 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2010 (LANDSAT imagery). The land cover’s maps that we got were produced from a supervised classification. The analysis of time series of LANDSAT images has shown that, during the period 1988-2000, the forests area decreased to the benefit of cultural practices (period before the creation of the SBEI), while the shrub strata distribution area has clearly increased during the period 2000-2010.