Assessments of Drought Effects on Plant Production Using Satellite Remote Sensing Technology, GIS and Observed Climate Data in Northwest Morocco, Case of the Lower Sebou Basin

TL;DR: Spatial modeling of land resources and constraints to guide urban development in Saudi Arabia’s NEOM region using geomatics techniques identifies suitable areas for urbanization based on land suitability, stability, accessibility, construction costs, and proximity to conservation areas. The model reveals that 28.23% of the studied area is favorable for development, supporting key initiatives such as "The Line" and "Oxagon."

Abstract: Agriculture is a fundamental pillar of Morocco's economy, contributing an average of 12,5% of GDP over the period 2000-2020 and helping to fight the rural exodus. Cereal crops play a major role in national agriculture, in which the main cereals, particularly wheat, occupying an important place in the dietary habits of rural and urban populations, although barley has a predominant place in animal feed. Moreover, food security in Morocco is based on cereal crops. This study aims to evaluate the evolution of the area under crop, the yield, and grain production in Morocco between 1930 and 2020, and the imports of main grains, based on the statistical approach in order to deduce the food security in the cereal sector. The results obtained show that the area cultivated to the main cereals has almost doubled between the decade 1930-1940 and the decade 2010-2020. Soft wheat is the type of cereal that has increased significantly compared to durum wheat and barley. As for cereal production, it is subject to strong fluctuations due to the drought, with a coefficient of variation of 46%. The favorable agro-ecological zone produces 44% of the main cereals in Morocco. Moreover, grain imports multiplied by 917%, particularly bread, a basic element of the diet, where each Moroccan consumes an average of 255 kg per year of wheat, almost fourfold the world average. In addition, Morocco moved from self-sufficiency to dependence on food grain imports after independence, where the import dependency ratio (IDR) reached 39,8% compared to 60,2% for food self-sufficiency (SRR). This indicates the failure of the agricultural policy in the cereal sector. Also, in this study, the requirement of food-grain (R) has been calculated in the time horizon to 2030 and 2050, especially for wheat.

TL;DR: Geospatial modeling of optimal zones for sustainable urbanization in southwestern NEOM, Saudi Arabia using geomatics techniques identifies suitable areas for urban development based on environmental factors, accessibility, and infrastructure proximity.

TL;DR: The definition of drought has continually been a stumbling block for drought monitoring and analysis as mentioned in this paper, mainly related to the time period over which deficits accumulate and to the connection of the deficit in precipitation to deficits in usable water sources and the impacts that ensue.

TL;DR: In this article, a new climatic drought index, the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), is proposed, which combines multiscalar character with the capacity to include the effects of temperature variability on drought assessment.

TL;DR: The normalized difference water index (NDWI) as discussed by the authors was proposed for remote sensing of vegetation liquid water from space, which is defined as (ϱ(0.86 μm) − ϱ(1.24 μm)) where ϱ represents the radiance in reflectance units.