THE CONTRIBUTION OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND REMOTE SENSING IN URBAN MANAGEMENT: CASE OF URBAN AGENCIES IN MOROCCO

Morocco has known a strong increase in urban population due to population growth, urban migration, and many other social, economic parameters. This urbanization introduces quite complex phenomena, generating a multitude of problems: transportation, lack of social facilities, environmental degradation, management of urban space, etc. The urban (1) agencies were created to control this phenomenon through the development of planning documents defining the rules for land use and monitoring of urban activities. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing are now positioned as powerful tools for decision support, particularly as regards the management of space. The integration of the spatial dimension, thanks to GIS, allows locating information and better organizing data in a more user-friendly way. Some procedures in the urban agencies are based on standard geographical documents.