Contribution of Remote Sensing and GIS in the Analysis of Landscape Ecology: Case of the High Steppe Plains of Algeria

Remote sensing integrated with geographic information systems (GIS) has opened new perspectives in environmental studies. In the field of sustainable management of steppe rangelands, it allows in particular to draw up the land cover map (LCM) which is needed to evaluate the sensitivity of the rangelands to disturbances (desertification, water erosion, soil salination …). This study presents a quantitative analysis of a landscape for a sustainable management of rangelands and the proposed methods for ecosystem restoration. The method is illustrated on a sub-watershed of the region of Messad-Ain El Ibel, with priority of intervention to water erosion. The steps followed are: (1) elaboration of the LCM by supervised classification. The kappa coefficient (83.9
^%
) indicates that the classification is sufficiently correct; (2) extraction of an area with urgent intervention priority against water erosion; (3) generalization of the Land Cover Map, and its smoothing by filters (Majority and Boundary clean tool); (4) finally, a quantitative analysis of the landscape using Fragstats. 10,040 patches were found. After generalizing by filter functions, the patches number per class decreased for all classes, a fragmentation indicate show that are moderately to weakly fragmented and The Shannon and the Simpson Diversity Index indicate that this diversity is maintained.