Télédétections thermiques infrarouges des concentrations urbaines au Maroc

Abstract : The thermal infrared satellite images can be employed on the conurbations remote sensing; and springboard in the study of the urbanization processes. Whether it is with NOAA 14 AVHRR or LANDSAT 5 TM infrared thermal images taken at dawn period all allow recognise at various levels of geographic analyses the concentrations of built areas and to extract different morphologic, social and demographical indicators: densities and morphologies of built areas, thresholds of concentrations of populations. Their types of information are obtained by the confrontation of the land surface temperatures maps produced from AVHRR thermal Infrared images with the maps of distribution of the Moroccan population; the TM thermal infrared sensor with the ground field reality and the Kenitra plan of town planning. Their difference of spatial resolution (1.1x1.1 Km with AVHRR and 120x120 m with TM) allowing respectively an analysis the levels intra urban and regional of the littoral urbanization of the Moroccan Atlantic Metropolis (MAM). The equivalence between the various results stemming from the remote sensing thermal infrared and socio demographical data processing shows additional character of geographic information produced by remote sensing.