Abstract
Land use changes are important drivers of ecosystem change. They depend on ecological, social, economic and political aspects. This work aims to develop a detailed protocol to forecast land use changes using Dinamica-Ego software. It includes the 1) time frame definition, 2) future scenarios definition, 3) identify the major driving forces of land use change, 4) collection and organize data for the modelling process, 5) calculation of landscape metrics for the base year, and 6) Dinamica-Ego modelling. Here, several sub-steps are described that involve calculating the transition matrix, preparing the raster cube, calculating the Weights of Evidence (WoE), assessing multicollinearity, revising the raster cube, validating the land use change model, adjusting the transition matrix and WoE and running the future land use simulation. The protocol explains how to simulate land use changes to 2050, showing scenarios 1) business as usual and 2) urbanization in Kaunas (Lithuania).•The protocol details a step-by-step approach to model land use change using Dinamica-Ego;•This protocol can be replicated in forecasting land use in any urban area;•The results obtained using this protocol were well-validated. Therefore, the reliability is high.