Mapping soil suitability using phenological information derived from MODIS time series data in a semi-arid region: A case study of Khouribga, Morocco.

To address the increasing global demand for food, it is crucial to implement sustainable agricultural practices, which include effective soil management techniques for enhancing productivity and environmental conditions. In this regard, a study was conducted to assess the efficacy of utilizing phenological metrics derived from satellite data in order to map and identify suitable agricultural soil within a semi-arid region. Two distinct methodologies were compared: one based on physicochemical soil parameters and the other utilizing the phenological response of vegetation through the application of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) Modis-time series. The study findings indicated that the NDVI-based approach successfully identified a specific class of soil suitability for agriculture (referred to as S1) that could not be effectively mapped using the multi-criteria analysis (MCAD) method relying on soil physicochemical parameters. This S1 class of soil suitability accounted for approximately 5 % of the total study area. These outcomes suggest that phenological-based approaches offer greater potential for spatio-temporal monitoring of soil suitability status compared to MCAD, which heavily relies on discrete observations and necessitates frequent updates of soil parameters. The approach developed to map the soil-suitability is a valuable tool for sustainable agricultural development, and it can play an effective role in ensuring food security and conducting a land agriculture assessment.

Comparative assessment of different reference evapotranspiration models towards a fit calibration for arid and semi-arid areas.

The enhancement of water efficiency requires controlling the high demand for irrigated agriculture which depends on improving the capabilities to accurately simulate the water cycle and its components. Among these, evapotranspiration is widely studied to estimate reference evapotranspiration (ET0) but the performance and accuracy of the estimates vary. Moreover, these estimates require some hardly available or misrepresentative meteorological data which lead, mainly in arid and semi-arid areas, to errors and inaccuracies. Here, ET0 of five empirical temperature-based estimates are compared to the standard FAO Penman-Monteith estimate (ET0-PM) under the representative and wide-ranging settings of 22 weather stations of Morocco. We found a significant positive correlation between ET0-PM and solar radiation, average and maximum air temperatures. We have determined that the Dorji estimate shows relatively better precision and stability while it requires advanced calibration to accommodate arid and semi-arid conditions. After hundreds of calibration repetitions, we concluded a new estimate (ET0-Hadria) which demonstrates an overall improvement in the quality and precision of ET0 assessment, mainly in flat areas. This estimate improved the precision and enhanced the precision in almost 68% of the stations. This simple calibrated estimate is an accurate, improved, and transferable tool achieved through a precise methodical process of selection and configuration.