The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of forest cover dynamics on the erosion at Kharouba watershed in the Moroccan Central Plateau. Our methodology is based on the diachronic analysis of the land cover between 1986 and 2016, using treatments of aerial photographs from 1986 and a Google Earth satellite imagery at a high resolution from 2016. The land cover maps obtained were used to establish erosion status maps between 1986 and 2016, based on methodology PAP/RAC. Our study highlights the regressive evolution of vegetation cover. This decline has stressed the increased water erosion risk in Kharouba watershed causing the spread of the areas that are vulnerable to water erosion from 36 % in 1986 up to 41 % in 2016.

Cork oak forests in Morocco are rich in resources and services thanks to their great biological diversity, playing an important ecological and socioeconomic role. Considerable degradation of the forests has been accentuated in recent years by significant human pressure and effects of climate change; hence, the health of the stands needs to be monitored. In this study, the Google Engine Earth platform was leveraged to extract the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and soil-adjusted vegetation index, from Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS satellite images between 2015 and 2017 to assess the health of the Sibara Forest in Morocco. Our results highlight the importance of interannual variations in NDVI in forest monitoring; the variations had a significantly high relationship (p < 0.001) with dieback severity. NDVI was positively and negatively correlated with mean annual precipitation and mean annual temperature with respective coefficients of 0.49 and − 0.67, highlighting its ability to predict phenotypic changes in forest species. Monthly interannual variation in NDVI between 2016 and 2017 seemed to confirm field observations of cork oak dieback in 2018, with the largest decreases in NDVI (up to − 38%) in December in the most-affected plots. Analysis of the influence of ecological factors on dieback highlighted the role of substrate as a driver of dieback, with the most severely affected plots characterized by granite-granodiorite substrates.

Several studies on the assessment of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks have been carried out at the global level. However, reliable information on SOC stocks is not readily available at the regional level. In addition, very few studies have assessed the factors responsible for the variation of SOC stocks, in particular the effect of plant communities. For this purpose, the main objective was to analyze the effects of three plant communities and ecological parameters on the SOC stock in the Mamora forest. Specifically, the authors looked to examine the relationships between SOC stock and plant communities and to define the main parameters that directly influence SOC stock. Ten soil profiles with three replications were sampled at each plant community, from which SOC stock was determined. To assess the effect of plant communities on SOC stocks, phytosociological surveys were carried out according to the phytosociological stigma method developed by Braun-Blanquet. The results show that the SOC stocks in cork oak soils are characterized by high variability, with values ranging from 55 t•ha -1 to 95 t•ha -1 . Indeed, the findings of this study showed that the SOC stocks fluctuated significantly with plant communities. In addition, SOC stocks were also affected by the interactions between plant communities, the amount of litter and the density of the cork oak stand. These outcomes of this study highlight the critical need to incorporate community-specific carbon values into future carbon sequestration modeling.