Extended abstract
 
Introduction
Cities are always influenced by various forces and factors. They are transformed by social changes, demographic displacements, economic changes, and technological innovations. As the population grows, activities and investments are greatly expanded and the physical system of the cities undergoes fundamental changes.Along with the rapid urbanization process, a large amount of natural lands, such as forests and wetlands, has turned into agricultural land and residential areas. Quick land use changes have had profound effects on natural and human environments. For example, agricultural developments and structures lead to deforestation, soil erosion, water basin degradation, and biodiversity loss and pollution. In addition, changes in the use of agricultural land and the acceleration of urbanization have led to an increase in impenetrable levels, which has led to the development of a transport network and the accumulation of non-disturbing contaminations associated with surface runoff. Due to these great effects, the detection and anticipation of land use changes has become an important topic in environmental management and land use planning.
At their initial stagesof formation, most of the cities in Iran were established near or in the middle of thehigh-quality agricultural lands with the purpose of using high-quality soil foragriculture and then, these lands were gradually buried under the cities throughdevelopment of villages and changing into cities and then development of thecities. Accordingly agricultural activities were inevitably receded to the poorlands.
 
Materials & Methods
To access fundamental maps for analysis of data and use of different methods to achieve the goal of this study, satellite images related to the years 1987,2000 and 2010 are used. Topographic maps of 1:50000 scales obtained from the army geographical organization are used for geometric correction. At this stage, geometric correction was performed on the images using image sensor TM of the year 2010 image-vector, which were geo-referenced. To perform this task, 42ground control points with appropriate distribution in road junctions, water channels, etc. were used. In this research, to process data, make models, and analyze the output, land cover maps produced in the years 1987 and 2014 as inputs of the LCM model, were selected to analyze the changes in the region and predict land use changes in the year 1404. The LCM model requires two maps covering lands belonging to different times as inputs. In this study, Gains and losses, net changes, unchanged regions, transitions from each user to another in different classes of land cover, were mapped to the model analysis section of the model.ENVI, IDRISI Selva and ARCGIS10 were used to categorize the uses of most-probability-models and methods and finally Ca_Markov model was used to predict and calculate changes in 2025, 2035 and 2045.  
 
Results & Discussion
Multi-temporal images used in this study were used in mapping land coverafter geometric corrections. With regard to existing  images and maps and the condition of the area under investigation and field visit for mapping land cover, five types of  applications are discovered for land namely, residential lands,irrigated lands, rain-fed lands, sterile lands, parks and gardens. Altogether, during this time (27years), agricultural and residential land cover has increased and sterile land and rain-fed land cover has decreased. Agricultural lands consume a huge amount of water due to exploiting water from deep holes and land overuse that has turned rain-fed lands and sterile lands into water-fed and residential lands.
As the table of predicting areas indicates, the greatest increase of about 1744/74 hectares belongs to agricultural lands and 1741/79 hectares belong to the urban lands which includes: residential lands, trade centers, military areas, hospitals, higher education institutes, etc. The least change which is 274/18 hectares, belong to parks and gardens in and around the cities. The most decline of 2261/59 hectares, is observed in sterile lands.  Of the total net changes, one can conclude that urban use has increased and all land cover has become largely urbanized, as well as water lands with the rise and development of deep wells. The need to preserve these lands from the physical development of the city in this direction is essential in order to develop the sustainable development of the city. There are many undeveloped lands in the old days due to the lack of water and the lack of facilities. The advancement of agriculture, turned these lands into agricultural lands. Today, landless areas are mostly on the suburbs or around the cities. This is mainly because of the farmers who leave their lands in a state of desert in hope of urban development to gain huge profits.This is the case where the city of Gonbad-e-Kavoos is not an exception to this rule. Parks and Gardens also have a rational increase in the city, therefore, in urban development projects, parks have been created but the size of the gardens is very low in the city of Gonbad-e-Kavoos.
 By predicting the changes in usages, it is concluded that the most changes will take place in urban usages and rain-fed and sterile lands with dramatic increase and decrease respectively.As the population of the city of Gonbad- e-Kavoosgrows, some steps should be taken to develop the spatial area of the city so as to prevent the destruction of fertile lands for the sake of human construction.
 
Conclusion
In this study, the effect of physical expansion of Gonbad-e-Kavoos city on agricultural lands is investigated. Findings indicate that during 45 years, around 1880 hectares of fertile farmlands surrounding the city are destroyed. The main reason behind this destruction is the horizontal expansion of the city. Hence, one of the fundamental bases of sustainable urban development is the increase of city density. It is concluded that horizontal expansion of the city is totally in contradiction to sustainable development and it leads to more instability of the city.