Abstract:
Mediterranean ecosystems are considered paricularly sensitive to
climate change. Any change of climatic factors affects the structure
and the functioning of these ecosystems and has influence on the plant
productivity. The main objective of this work is to characterize one of
the Mediterranean ecosystems; the forest of the Mahouna (located in
the North East of Algeria) in point of view of edaphic, vegetation and
their climate link using meteorological data (precipitation and temperatures for a period of 30 years) and satellite imagery for the
period from 1987 to 2015. The analysis of vegetation enables to
determine 46 botanical families with dominance of phanerophytes and
therophytes, which grow on rich soils in organic matter, with an acid
pH, variable texture from sandy-loamy, silty-sandy to clay or very clay
at different places. The diachronic study of this massive shows a
reduction in the area of plant cover in the order of 1.97%. The climate
analysis indicates an increase in the monthly average maximum
temperatures, with a highly significant warming of 0.12 ° C for the
spring season and the rainfall is variable from one year to another and
tends to a more and more dry years . The three-hours thermal data for
the period from 2000 to 2010 highlights 502 days of cold stress and
373 days of heat stress, affecting plant productivity, where there was a
decrease in NDVI values of vegetation exposed to thermal stress
periods.
