Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

This paper reports the results of data compilation on water erosion in Central Plateau of Morocco. It tries to test the efficiency of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to predict erosion in Mediterranean forest situations. The experiment was conducted at forest stations of Lalla Regraga and Aïn Guernouch about 50 and 100 km respectively from Rabat, the capital of Morocco. RUSLE model translates erosion as a product of rain erosivity, soil erodibility, topography, vegetation and practices. It was mainly developed for cultivated lands, it was rarely applied to forest areas and never to forests in Morocco.
To verify the accuracy of using RUSLE in these situations, two sets of 5 and 6 experimental Wischmeier type plots and a climatic station were installed at the above sited stations. The two experimental sites are characterized by a local semi arid with moderate winter climate, a hydrographic network represented mainly by first order gullies, a lithology showing granite lands with sandy soils at Aïn Guernouch site and schist land with clayey soils in Lalla Regraga site, a deciduous forest in the first site, and a coniferous one in the second site. In order to introduce information coming from remote sensing, we have analyzed the thermal depth over all territory, using MSG thermal images, to characterize the soil and obtain comparison with other regions in Morocco and Spain.