The management of land use in big cities and capitals and the surrounding adjacent urban aggregates is still of major importance in the field of urban development, especially in cities with populations of millions and various types of land uses and economic activities. The rural–urban continuum between the cities of Ar Riyadh and Al Kharj suffers from an unclear general land use trend, due to urban expansion at the expense of the agriculture lands, the imbalance of the population compound, the deterioration of the urban fabric, lack and poor distribution of services, and the dominance of industrial land use at the expense of other uses. These factors have led to an increase in environmental changes and loss of the environmental and ecological characteristics of this area between Ar Riyadh and Al Kharj. The present study aims at evaluating the land use suitability for urban development in the rural–urban continuum between Ar Riyadh and Al Kharj cities. This is achieved by using the GIS-based Multi Criteria decision Analysis (GIS-MCDA) on twelve various economic, environmental, urban, and law criteria. The weights of criteria were determined using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The results of the spatial suitability map of the land use for sustainable urban development revealed that there are five categories of spatial suitability ranging in suitability from 32% to 86%. The recommended areas for sustainable urban development are those with a spatial suitability upwards of 70% in the rural–urban continuum corridor between Ar Riyadh and Al Kharj cities. The sustainable development in this corridor can be achieved by executing high priority projects that ensure and support the urban sustainable development plan through establishing four local urban development centers and upgrading four current villages to rural communities, aiming at strengthening the functional bonds between the rural communities and the local urban development centers. These projects will limit the sustainable urban development to specific areas without allowing random expansion, avoiding the urban conjugation of the two Ar Riyadh and Al Kharj cities through the connecting area between them.

Heritage is considered a pillar of civilized cultural identity and an important income resource. Climate change is one of the main threats to cultural heritage as fragile buildings are highly vulnerable to its impacts, as a result, many world heritage sites, unfortunately, have been lost. This study used Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop risk maps that determine spatial environmental changes regarding climatic parameters. The study used satellite images to analyze changes over 20 years for three climatic factors: temperature, humidity, and precipitation patterns. The average rate of change for each indicator was developed by comparing each month over 20 years. Three sub-models classifying changes for the selected factors were created, while the climatology model integrated the three sub-models with equal weights to assess the most vulnerable World Heritage sites. The vulnerable sites were classified into five categories, from less risk to the riskier. The study showed that most of Saudi’s Heritage sites are in the moderate-risk area. The study achieved the sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 11 and SDG 13. This paper supports decision-makers to preserve heritage sustainably and to create proactive plans for it.