Climate Change Impact on Vegetation Dynamics in Tensift Region, Morocco

Abstract

Tensift region is known by an arid and semi-arid climate. The city of Marrakech, experience an important temporal variability in rainfall and an increasing trend of temperature during the last five decades. However, the evolution of rainfall is more contrasted by a downward trend in Marrakech, it is also distinguished by alarming clues of global warming, like the number of hot days and heat waves. This paper evaluates the effect of climate change on Vegetation cover (evaluated by NDVI) in the Tensift region, Morocco. Temperature, rainfall data, and vegetation cover were used in this analysis. The effect of climate change on vegetation was studied using a linear regression analysis method, to explore the relationship between vegetation dynamics and climate factors (the trend of vegetation dynamics for the years between 1973 -2019). Analysis of annual data, for the temperature and vegetation cover shows a low regression coefficient value of 0.3057 and, rainfall and vegetation cover analysis show regression coefficient value of 0.7024. Monthly periods analysis showed that the most important period is the one between December and May where the regression coefficient value is 0.6568. In more details the period between March and May shows regression coefficient value of 0.4685, the period between December and February shows regression coefficient value of 0.434, the period between September and November shows regression coefficient value of 0.0734. The study reveals that, rainfall is significantly related with vegetation cover, especially the period between December and May, more than the temperature does in Tensift region.