Site Suitability Analysis for Cork Oak Regeneration Using GIS Based Multicriteria Evaluation Techniques in Maamora Forest-Morocco

Following the assumption that some soils are less suitable for the development of cork oak, a substitution of cork oak by exotic species has been carried out on a large part of Maamora forest. However, soil is not the only factor to consider in assessing the suitability. Therefore, some areas might just suit to cork oak but to what extent? To answer this question, major factors known to influence the regeneration of cork oak have been identified and mapped using multicriteria evaluation. Therefore, factors were incorporated by weighted linear combination to determine suitability indices for the regeneration of cork oak. The weight of each factor was estimated by expert judgment using the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) approach. The main factors influencing the cork oak regeneration suitability in Maamora forest are climate expressed by “continentality”, terrainslope, thickness of the sand, slope of the clay floor layer, and plant communities and soil types. These factors were mapped by incorporating fuzzy logic in order to avoid crisp classes and ensure a smooth transition between the preference and indifference. This allowed then to integrate uncertainty in the knowledge of the exact class limits. Finally, four classes of regeneration suitability were obtained. These classes are good, medium, low and very low suitability and which represent 17.40%, 40.18%, 34.84% and 4.28% of the forest area respectively.