Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Land use dynamics in Tafilalet Oasis, Morocco : a geographic social ecology analysis

Landnutzungsdynamik in der Oase Tafilalet, Marokko : eine geographisch-sozialökologische Analyse

Auteur : Kasinger, Ruth

Université de soutenance : Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz,

Grade : Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) 2021

Résumé
This dissertation deals with land use, a topic of man-environment research. Different forms of land use are associated with specific resource consumption. Each change in use also leads to a change in resource demand. Changes in the practice and spatial expansion of agriculture particularly affect the resources water and soil. This paper addresses the question of which land use changes have taken place in the Tafilalet Oasis since the mid-1960s and which drivers have triggered them. Using the Social Ecological Interaction Model, an interdisciplinary research approach employs physical and chemical analyses as well as methods of empirical social research, which are linked to spatial data from geo-technologies.It has been shown that the actively cultivated agricultural area has expanded over several decades after an initial decline, and that the development of the area not (any longer) cultivated is taking an opposite course, as well as the settlement area is increasing exponentially. Until the beginning of the 1990s, climatological drivers were decisive ; since then, it has been primarily socio-economic change that has led to ongoing changes in land use and increased the pressure of use on groundwater. However, not the entire oasis area is affected by the change in use in the same way, but spatial patterns with regions of different development emerge. Agriculture requires the local population to have extensive knowledge about the self-regulating and controlling mechanisms of the natural physical environment. The sophisticated traditional organisation is adapted to the existing conditions but cannot adapt quickly enough to the rapid socio-economic and ecological changes. Moreover, the state institutions have so far not been able to implement successful support to empower the local population to adapt. Likewise, the goal of poverty reduction in peripheral regions, which is anchored in the state development plans, could not be achieved due to competing development paths

Présentation

Version intégrale (35,2 Mb)