Assessing Regional Scale Water Balances through Remote Sensing Techniques: A Case Study of Boufakrane River Watershed, Meknes Region, Morocco

Abstract

This paper aims to develop a method to assess regional water balances using remote sensing techniques. The Boufakrane river watershed in Meknes Region (Morocco), which is characterized by both a strong urbanization and a rural land use change, is taken as a study case. Firstly, changes in land cover were mapped by classifying remote sensing images (Thematic Mapper, Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus and Operational Land Imager) at a medium scale resolution for the years 1990, 2003 and 2018. By means of supervised classification procedures the following land cover categories could be mapped: forests, bare soil, arboriculture, arable land and urban area. For each of these categories a water balance was developed for the different time periods, taking into account changing management and consumption patterns. Finally, the land cover maps were combined with the land cover specific water balances resulting in a total water balance for the selected catchment. The procedure was validated by comparing the assessments with data from water supply stations and the number of licensed ground water extraction pumps. In terms of land use/land cover changes (LULCC), the results showed that urban areas, natural vegetation, arboriculture and cereals increased by 183.74%, 12.55%, 34.99 and 48.77% respectively while forests and bare soils decreased by 78.65% and 16.78% respectively. On the other hand, water consumption has been increased significantly due to the Meknes city growth, the arboriculture expansion and the new crops’ introduction in the arable areas. The increased water consumption by human activities is largely due to reduced water losses through evapotranspiration because of deforestation. Since the major part of the forest in the catchment has disappeared, a further increase of the water consumption by human activities can no longer be offset by deforestation.

Integrated Water Resources Research: Advancements in Understanding to Improve Future Sustainability

“…Results show the value of using integrated modeling approaches with observed data to resolve big-river challenges. El Hafyani et al [15] developed a method to assess regional water balances using remote sensing techniques in the Boufakrane river watershed in Meknes Region (Morocco). Using a supervised classification procedure and combined mapping procedure, the water balance was developed considering changing management and consumption patterns.…”

Modeling and Spatiotemporal Mapping of Water Quality through Remote Sensing Techniques: A Case Study of the Hassan Addakhil Dam

“…These dams also provide habitat for fauna and flora and play a very important role in the global carbon cycle and climate change [4,5]. However, they are facing the interannual variability of precipitation and the succession of droughts and floods [6][7][8][9]. In order to monitor the water quality and observe the biophysical and biochemical conditions of the Hassan Addakhil dam and to prevent serious damage from occurring to the ecological system, the Guir-Ziz-Rheris Hydraulic Basin Agency (HBAGZR), in charge of water resources management in the Errachidia region, conducts in situ measurement surveys.…”

“…Therefore, it is essential to have a complete, accurate, fast and inexpensive monitoring system to follow the water quality of the dam in order to avoid any degradation by applying prompt treatments. Recently, geospatial tools have been widely used for the spatiotemporal monitoring of environmental phenomena [6,11,12], especially the monitoring of lake water quality parameters [3,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Such application is mainly enabled by the high spatial resolution data [21,24,26] as well as the temporal resolution.…”

Assessment of Agricultural Water Requirements for Semi-Arid Areas: A Case Study of the Boufakrane River Watershed (Morocco)

“…In semi-arid regions like Morocco, agricultural practices are facing a series of challenges not limited to climate change, which is reflected in an increasingly warmer and drier climate [3], coupled with the increasingly random spatiotemporal variability of rainfall, and associated droughts and floods [4][5][6][7][8]. These issues are exacerbated by increasingly complex land use and land cover practices that in turn adversely affect socio-economic development [9].…”

“…These issues are exacerbated by increasingly complex land use and land cover practices that in turn adversely affect socio-economic development [9]. Agriculture, as an important economic sector, is therefore deeply impacted, given crop production dependence on the annual rainfall distribution [4][5][6][7][8]. It is clear that humans have created and are now witnessing a great agricultural ecosystem disturbance [8].…”