THE IMPACT OF VARIABILITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE ON PLANT DYNAMICS IN THE BOUREGREG WATERSHED (MOROCCO)

The Bouregreg watershed is a space for rain-fed agriculture. This agricultural characteristic of the basin is part of the agricultural policy implemented after independence. Certain areas of Morocco have in fact benefited from the irrigation policy to the detriment of other areas, such as that to which the Bouregreg watershed belongs. Although rain-fed agricultural areas have not seen significant investment in irrigation, they remain the main agricultural producers in the kingdom today. However, the dynamics of precipitation since the 1970s has made rainfed agriculture more and more uncertain. Farmers are implementing strategies to mitigate the effects of climatic hazards. But these strategies often lead to degradation of vegetation and soils. This dynamic of the environment towards marked degradation is amplified by agricultural, pastoral and demographic pressures. The visible expression of the interaction between increasingly unfavorable rain conditions and anthropogenic activities is a drop or stagnation in agricultural production, mainly cereal. This also tends to confirm the hypothesis of a decrease in soil productivity capacity. Through this work, it is therefore a question, in the first part, of analyzing the evolution of rainfall and soil moisture conditions in the Bouregreg basin, in order to better understand its impact on better crops area. Finally, it is a question of taking stock of the combined action of climate change and agricultural and pastoral activities on the landscape of the basin. To achieve these objectives, geostatistical, remote sensing and GIS methods are used to analyze, on the one hand the evolution of the climate and land use (1980–2009), and on the other hand to detect correlations. between climate, anthropogenic activities and changes observed in the environment.