Lakhasly

development and sustaining limited agricultural resources, especially farmlands.The GIM was selected as a study area because (1) nearly 40% of Jordan's primary croplands located in Irbid, (2) it is the second-fastest-growing urban area in the country, (3) it has been experiencing rapid socioeconomic and demographic transformations, and (4) its zoning and urban planning policies are not well designed, not fully enforced, and their sustainability perspectives are not pronounced.Since 2001, the GIM area has undergone significant land cover changes to support the growing urban population resulting from (1) economic development (2) domestic rural-urban migration, (3) changing demographic structure, (4) changing lifestyle, and (5) the influx of Syrian refugees during the Arab Spring of 2011 [58].The SLEUTH model is applied for the first time in Jordan, providing a robust approach for making long-term sustainable urban planning strategies that integrate spatially explicit models and geospatial technologies.While numerous case-studies investigated urban growth in Irbid using remote sensing and GIS [59-63], no study has yet used the SLEUTH model to predict urban dynamics and quantify the past, present, and future urban expansion on agricultural land of Jordan.Nevertheless, and due to increasing conversion rates of farmlands to urbanization, countless efforts have been paid towards modeling long-term land-use/cover dynamics, in general, and urbanization, in particular, in these countries [44-47].Accordingly, the municipal boundary of Irbid city was adjusted resulting in integrating agriculturally dominant rural districts to the city limits.This becomes more problematic when the Arab countries neglect the importance of proper management through balancing between available agricultural lands and conversion for urban use [44].

development and sustaining limited agricultural resources, especially farmlands. From
1970 to 2010, the Arab urban population grew four times, and the number is expected
to double by 2050 [42]. Here, city planning is often challenged by the disconnection
between national strategic planning cycles and spatial planning for urban development.
This becomes more problematic when the Arab countries neglect the importance of proper
management through balancing between available agricultural lands and conversion
for urban use [44]. Nevertheless, and due to increasing conversion rates of farmlands to
urbanization, countless efforts have been paid towards modeling long-term land-use/cover
dynamics, in general, and urbanization, in particular, in these countries [44–47]. Jordan
is categorized as a food deficit Arab country, where 0.5% of all households suffer from
food insecurity. Jordan’s arable area has undergone considerable decline since 1975 mainly
due to rapid urban growth and land degradation [48–50]. Although the contribution of
the agricultural sector to the GDP is small, farming remains a major source of food for
nearly 25% of Jordan’s poor [51,52]. While numerous studies were conducted to establish a
linkage between urbanization and agricultural land consumption, the focus was yet on the
capital city of Amman [53–56].
Located to the north of Amman in the most fertile and productive agricultural zone of
Jordan, Irbid city was neglected for years. In recent years and as land-use/cover began to
change dramatically, built-up urban area rapidly has grown on the productive peripheral
farmlands, forming a major metropolitan area in the north. To facilitate the problem
of governance of such a vast area, the number of municipalities and village councils
around the city of Irbid were amalgamated to form what is known today as the Greater
Irbid Municipality [57]. Accordingly, the municipal boundary of Irbid city was adjusted
resulting in integrating agriculturally dominant rural districts to the city limits. Since 2001,
the GIM area has undergone significant land cover changes to support the growing urban
population resulting from (1) economic development (2) domestic rural-urban migration,
(3) changing demographic structure, (4) changing lifestyle, and (5) the influx of Syrian
refugees during the Arab Spring of 2011 [58].
While numerous case-studies investigated urban growth in Irbid using remote sensing
and GIS [59–63], no study has yet used the SLEUTH model to predict urban dynamics and
quantify the past, present, and future urban expansion on agricultural land of Jordan. The
SLEUTH model is applied for the first time in Jordan, providing a robust approach for
making long-term sustainable urban planning strategies that integrate spatially explicit
models and geospatial technologies. In this study, the impact of past, present, and future
urban development patterns and agricultural land consumption across a 324 km2 GIM area
are examined. These transformations are analyzed at the district level for the first time to
highlight the most affected districts and their agricultural values. The GIM was selected as
a study area because (1) nearly 40% of Jordan’s primary croplands located in Irbid, (2) it is
the second-fastest-growing urban area in the country, (3) it has been experiencing rapid
socioeconomic and demographic transformations, and (4) its zoning and urban planning
policies are not well designed, not fully enforced, and their sustainability perspectives are
not pronounced.