Author(s)

Loubna Khalile^*, Hassan Rhinane, Abdelhadi Kaoukaya, Hicham Lahlaoi

Faculté des Sciences Aïn Chock, Université Hassan II-Casablanca, Casablanca, Morocco.

Peri-urban forests are subject to different dynamics due to several factors. Nfifikh forest is a man-made space, located in suburban of Mohammedia City, belonging to Casablanca, Settat Region, and geographically between Casablanca, the economic and business Capital of Morocco and Rabat, the national political capital. Over the past three decades, it has experienced several significant degradations. The aim of this study is to evaluate and quantify the deforestation within the study area using a forest cover change detection of various vegetation indices and subpixel classification to pick out high density plots with Landsat images TM, ETM⁺ and OLI. Remote sensing is used to highlight the changes caused through Space-Time. This monitoring might help managers to generate forest management plans and to moderate the speed of deforestation and degradation. The results show a significant change in vegetation cover detected between 1987 and 2015. The Density increased in 2001 while it decreased considerably in 2015.

Subpixel, Vegetation Indices, Change Detection, Monitoring, Nfifikh Forest

Khalile, L. , Rhinane, H. , Kaoukaya, A. and Lahlaoi, H. (2018) Forest Cover Monitoring and Change Detection in Nfifikh Forest (Morocco). Journal of Geographic Information System, 10, 219-233. doi: 10.4236/jgis.2018.102011.