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Maâmora is considered the most important cork-oak forest in the world with regard to surface. Therefore, anthropic pressure, including cork harvesting, grazing and soft acorn picking up by local communities, has harmful consequences on forest regeneration and the forest become older exceeding harvesting age. Thus, its sustainability depends on the managers' ability to succeed cork oak plantations. This work presents an assessment approach to evaluate Quercus suber suitability to its plantation which is based on a random forest algorithm (RF). In fact, this suitability has been assessed through analyzing management data related to previous plantation success rates (SR). Then a relationship between SR and a set of environmental and social factors has been investigated using the RF. Application of the fitted model to continuous maps of all involved factors enabled establishment of suitability maps which would help managers to make more rational decisions in terms of cork oak regeneration, ensuring Maâmora forest sustainability.

Erosion affects large parts of Moroccan land, particularly in the mountains leading to soil quality deterioration and less vegetation cover. Located in the South-west of Morocco, the Site of Biological and Ecological Interest (SBEI) of Ain Asmama, where erosion threatens a major part of the region was investigated. The site has a terraced transitional bioclimate, between arid to sub-humid, of local conservation importance. The varied, dense, continuous, and well-preserved vegetation of the area is crucial to protect the soils against erosion. Qualitative observations show that soils are increasingly degraded, water erosion is developing, and sediments accumulate in dams and ponds. In this study we have used the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to assess the erosion risk in this area. It helped to develop a synthetic map of erosion susceptibility. Our results show that the integration of the different parameters in the water erosion process estimated the loss of soil amounting 339,03 tons/ha/year over the whole site. This is equivalent to a value of soil lowering of 2,82 cm which is considered extremely high.

La conservation et la gestion des espèces endémiques, impose la connaissance de leurs aires de distribution potentielle et des facteurs environnementaux conditionnant ces répartitions. Ce travail vise l’identification des facteurs écologiques régissant la répartition géographique d’Argania spinosa et la cartographie de son aire potentielle sous les conditions climatiques actuelles et ce, pour une meilleure planification de sa gestion. L’approche d’entropie maximale a été utilisée. Le principal résultat est une carte de probabilité continue montrant l’aire potentielle de distribution de l’arganier au Maroc. Le modèle développé est d’excellente qualité. Il valide l’aire de répartition connue, et prédit la présence de l’espèce dans d’autres zones. Les variables les plus significatives conditionnant la distribution de l’arganier sont les précipitations du trimestre le plus froid, la saisonnalité de la température et l’humidité relative moyenne annuelle.