Abstract
The spatiotemporal analysis of land use/land cover change and monitoring, modeling, and forecasting the future of land uses are considered challenges facing planners and decision-makers in developing countries. These challenges are increased in neighborhood areas surrounding large cities, which are known as the "rural-urban continuum". These areas have become the preferred areas for resettlement for most urban residents. The objectives of the present study were to (1) monitor the land cover change in the rural-urban continuum axis between the Ar-Riyadh and Al-Kharj cities during the period 1988-2020, (2) simulate the future growth of land cover up to the year 2030 using the Cellular Automated Markov Model (CA-Markov), and (3) improve the ability of CA-Markov to predict the future by integrating multi-criteria analysis based on geographic information systems (GIS-MCA) and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. The results of the study revealed large changes in the land cover in the rural-urban continuum axis between the Ar-Riyadh and Al-Kharj cities. About 60 km(2) of agricultural land has been lost, with an average annual decrease of 2 km(2). The industrial and urban areas were increased with growth rate of 4%. There were five categories of spatial suitability, ranging between 32 and 86%, and 70% or higher is the recommended percentage for future land uses. The industrial use was the most likely land use in 2030, as it recorded an increase of 27.1 km(2) over the year 2020.