Assessing forest dynamic in Talassemtane National Park: A 34-year land cover change analysis using Google Earth Engine
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Plant, Animal and Agro-Industry Production Laboratory, Faculty of
Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, University Campus, Kenitra, 14000,
Rabat Salé Kenitra, Morocco
Corresponding author
Abdelazziz Chemchaoui
Plant, Animal and Agro-Industry Production Laboratory, Faculty of
Sciences, Ibn Tofail University, University Campus, Kenitra, 14000,
Rabat Salé Kenitra, Morocco
Ecol. Eng. Environ. Technol. 2025; 5
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ABSTRACT
Land cover change detection offers multiple opportunities to spatial management specialists. Monitoring spatiotemporal dynamics is undoubtedly one of these key tasks. This study aims to monitor the forest dynamics of Talassemtane National Park over 34 years using merged composite cloud-masking Landsat images and Google Earth Engine a Google cloud product. This product provides a vast amount of geospatial data and algorithms to query, analyze, and visualize the data using simple scripts. The park’s forests, which covered 43,600 hectares in 1990 (67% of the park), have lost more than 18% of their cover during this period, at an annual rate of 240 hectares. The largest reduction occurred between 1995 and 2000, with a significant loss of 4,411 hectares. The study results will be available to park managers to help them target interventions to conserve and develop the park’s forests.