Keywords: Morocco, land degradation, environmental monitoring, observation sites, field studies

Field studies of the conditions of the landscape components of the territory were conducted within 22 observation sites planned on the route (profile) along the Tensift River to northward of of the city of Marrakech, Morocco. Features of their current state (development, supression, distortion, toxic pollution, changes from one to another, complete or partial absence of certain components, etc.) have been characterized, photographed, filmed, and descriptively documented. The proper factual material has been entered into a database created within the framework of a geographic information system. As a result of a comprehensive qualitative analysis of the characteristics of the state of landscape components, they were transfered into a single quantitative parameter of the land degradation class of this area from the 1st (most degraded) to the 5th (practically not degraded). The algorithm for integrating the descriptively recorded indicators consisted of a kind of “summation” – devised by the authors – of the qualitatively assessed condition of each landscape component at a specific observation site; and, as a result of this comprehensive analysis, the determination of an integrated quantitative indicator of land degradation class. In this context, the so-called “reference” 5th class was taken as the qualitatively assessed state, within the oases, of practically the same landscape components, where the main focus of the criteria was on the condition of the vegetation cover (particularly the presence and development of palm trees). In the studied area, the 1st class of degradation was assessed at one survey site, at eight sites – as the 2nd, at seven sites – as the 3rd, at six sites – as the 4th. No sites with the 5th degree of land degradation were recorded within the studied area.

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