How Could Geomatics Promote Our Knowledge for Environmental Management in Eastern Algeria?

Geomatics are referring to the combination of Earth measures with the computer science. Nowadays it is a crucial tool for decision-making in many areas such as environmental information systems and natural hazards. The use of classical statistics led to forget the first time in objects location, supplemented by the cartography, then found in an analysis in terms of residues, the spatial effects. GIS based software applications have been used widely for environment management and analysis studies. The usage of GIS in environmental risk management ranges from simple development of databases/inventory systems, to advanced GIS layers overlay, then to complex spatial decision-making systems for study of the impact of air, water and soil pollutions, ecological imbalance and natural disasters on the environmental and human receptors. Moreover, as tools of geomatics, the methods of geostatistics and mathematical morphology, when grouped in spatial statistics, they analyze the information directly in a geocoded structure. In this study, the use of Geomatics tools (GIS and Remote Sensing) for the execution and spatial analysis of land cover in the region of Aures (eastern Algeria) was discussed as well as desertification and water erosion risks were assessed. This study aims to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of these tools and to know its potential for assessing and management of natural environments within arid and semi arid contexts.