Soil erosion assessment in a semi-arid environment: a case study from the Argana Corridor, Morocco
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Soil erosion assessment in a semi‑arid environment: a case study from the Argana Corridor, Morocco Latifa Bou‑imajjane1 · Mhamed Alaeddine Belfoul1 · Racha Elkadiri2 · Martin Stokes3 Received: 22 May 2019 / Accepted: 3 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Soil erosion is a widespread problem that continues to expand in magnitude and scope due to ever-changing anthropogenic and climatic conditions. The High Atlas Mountains in Morocco are a typical case where this problem affects the ecological and socioeconomic activities of the region. The main objective of this study is to provide an erosion risk analysis of the Argana Corridor in the High Atlas of Morocco using GIS, Remote Sensing and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). The erosion assessment is based on various controlling factors including climate, topography, vegetation cover, soil erodibility and soil conservation practices. Findings indicate that the study area is subjected to significant erosion, reaching an average annual soil loss rate of 47.52 t/ha/year, and an annual erosion amount of 5,233,840 tons. Collectively, the methodology and results provide a decision support system for stakeholders in the region, and a framework for studies in data-scarce regions. Keywords Soil erosion · RUSLE · Remote sensing · GIS · Argana Corridor · Western High Atlas · Morocco
Introduction Soil erosion is a form of land degradation inducing negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts (Del Mar López et al. 1998; Lal 1998), such as desertification, low agricultural yield (Merzouk et al. 1993) and siltation of Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-020-09127-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Latifa Bou‑imajjane latifa.bou‑[email protected] Mhamed Alaeddine Belfoul [email protected] Racha Elkadiri [email protected] Martin Stokes [email protected] 1
Geology Department, Faculty of Science Agadir, Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco
2
Geosciences Department, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, USA
3
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK
dams (Elaloui et al. 2017). Such erosion remains the principal cause of soil degradation worldwide, and is of critical concern for the sustainable management of agricultural resources and downstream water bodies. An understanding of the factors controlling erosional processes is vital when developing methods to mitigate the impacts associated with soil degradation. Moreover, soil erosion continues to deteriorate temporally and spatially (Hoyos 2005; Pandey et al. 2009) due to the combined effect of climate change and anthropogenic activities, including but not limited to deforestation, grazing, and urban expansion (Vezena and Bonn 2006; Boudhar et al. 2007). Morocco, and especially the Western High Atlas, is considered to be one of the most vulnerable areas t
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