Interpreting landscapes from a socioecological perspective: A methodological approach from the zat valley (Morocco)

This chapter develops a methodology to interpret the landscape from the integrative perspective of socioecological systems, including the representation of biodiversity - both fauna and vegetation - and cultural elements. The first phase of the methodology consists of a general panoramic visualization of the landscape for its analysis and interpretation (chromatic assessment), starting from the large chromatic sets and differentiated tonalities of the great land covers. A transect is designed for each landscape unit or subunit previously identified through the graphic representation of the most relevant biodiversity and cultural elements present in the unit. An approach of the proposed methodology is presented for a case study located in the Zat Valley, in the Moroccan High-Atlas (province of Al-Haouz, Morocco). The proposed qualitative methodology combines different types of elements that make up the socioecological systems (vegetation, fauna and social elements), graphically represented in the same image from a holistic and integrated perspective.