Deforestation drivers in northern Morocco: an exploratory spatial data analysis

Abstract

Formulating effective policies to address or mitigate deforestation requires a comprehensive understanding of the contributing factors. This study examines the drivers of deforestation from 2001 to 2020 in the Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima (TTA) region, a northern Moroccan area distinguished by the country’s highest deforestation rate. Through an extensive review of existing literature and employing Geist and Lambin’s deforestation framework, we identified five key causes: infrastructure extension, agricultural expansion, logging, wildfires as direct causes, and demographic factors as an indirect cause. Data on deforestation and its contributing factors were sourced from diverse databases, including Global Forest Change (GFC), Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD), Burned Area Product (MODIS Fire_CCI51), World Population, Forest Proximate People (FPP), and National Forest Inventory (NFI) datasets. Pixel-level analysis of GFC data indicated that wildfires are the primary driver of deforestation in the region, accounting for 35.2%, followed by agricultural expansion (30.6%), logging (13.2%), and infrastructure extension (10.1%). The remaining 10.9% of losses were attributed to other disturbances, such as illegal extraction, pests, and dieback. Spatial patterns were further analyzed through Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) methods at a 1 km2 gridded scale, revealing strong clustering for all studied factors. Spatial relationships were explored using the bivariate local Moran’s index, which highlighted the highest spatial dependence between deforestation and fires (I = 0.21). Correlations between deforestation and other factors, including agricultural expansion, logging, infrastructure extension, and demographic pressure, were assessed at 0.18, 0.17, 0.08, and 0.05, respectively. Landscape pressures (LSP), encompassing deforestation, agricultural expansion, fires, infrastructure extension, and demographic pressure, were analyzed using the local Geary index, revealing a positive correlation in approximately 59% of spatial units. Last, a composite map of LSP clusters and an explanatory diagram illustrating dominant patterns in the TTA region were generated based on the results from local Geary’s multivariate and local Moran’s univariate tests.