Diachronic study (2000-2019) of bioclimate and land use in Tlemcen region, Northwest Algeria

ABSTRACT

This paper reports a study of bioclimatic dynamics and land use in the region of Tlemcen (north-west of Algeria). GIS (geographic information system) and satellite images (LandSat) were used to conduct a diachronic study based on a series of satellite images from the years 2000 and 2019 to demonstrate changes in the study area while highlighting the importance of environmental conditions, including climate and anthropogenic impact on dynamic vegetation cover. Bioclimatic synthesis has shown an improvement in the rainfall regime and an evolution towards higher bioclimatic atmospheres between the two periods (1985–1999) and (2004–2018). Land use in the study area is under the influence of strong anthropogenic pressures and is experiencing a decline in forest areas from 28.74 to 17.49% but also in agricultural land and lawns from 38.61% to 27.67% in favour of built-up areas which increased from 0.81% to 1.09% but mainly to the benefit of bare soil: an ultimate stage of degradation whose surface area increased from 31.59% in 2000 to 53.46% in 2019.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioclimate
• land use
• dynamic
• GIS
• Tlemcen

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.