Land use/land cover (LULC) changes driven by urbanization have profoundly influenced habitat quality, threatening ecosystem resilience and biodiversity. This study examines the dynamics of LULC and its impact on habitat quality in Rasht County, Iran, while evaluating the efficacy of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in mitigating habitat degradation and promoting sustainable urban-rural development. By utilizing remote sensing data from 1990, 2007, and 2023, the spatiotemporal evolution of LULC was analyzed. Four scenarios were developed—Business as Usual (BAU), Ecological Conservation (EC), Ecological Restoration (ER), and Urban Transformation and Development (UTD)—to explore future trends using the CA-Markov model and assess habitat quality using the InVEST model. The results highlight substantial declines in forests and grasslands due to urban expansion, particularly under the BAU scenario, where habitat degradation intensified by 9.2% from 2023 to 2040. Conversely, the UTD scenario showed the greatest improvement, reducing habitat degradation by 7.7% compared to BAU, driven by targeted urban transformation policies and the integration of ecological considerations. While the EC and ER scenarios achieved moderate success through conservation and restoration efforts, their impacts were less pronounced than those of UTD. This study underscores the transformative potential of NBS in balancing development and ecosystem protection. It emphasizes the value of integrating accessible spatial data with innovative predictive models for LULC and habitat quality assessments, offering a replicable framework for data-limited regions to inform policy and planning.
