Saharan date palm plantation doubled in Algeria over the last four decades insofar as northern plantation expanded

• Maxent results indicates that paucity of areas are suitable for Date palm plantation. • Nocturnal light and NDVI emerged as significant factors in predicting date palm distribution in Algeria. • Date palm plantation had doubled over past 37 years. • Date production is confined at the province of Biskra. • Date Palm Plantation area increase towards suitable area but with low important rate. Algeria serves as a representative country and prime example of date palm plantations (DPP) in Arab countries. Understanding the spatial distribution of date palm ( Phoenix dactylifera L) plantations is crucial for sustaining production levels. This study aimed to identify suitable areas for DPP and track the potential changes in DPP over space and time using freely available remote sensing data. The Maxent approach was chosen to predict suitable zones for date palm planting based on fifteen key environmental variables. In addition, Classification and Regression Trees (CART) classifier technique was applied within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform to quantify the spatio-temporal distribution of DPP for 1984 and 2021 using a sum of 116 USGS Landsat archive (L1T). Furthermore, change maps – Land Use Land Change Modeler (LCM) was applied to show the main changes in DPP in terms of of gains, persistence, and losses with two example type zones; zone 1 and 2. The trend of change in the DPP was mapped using the spatial trend of change LCM. The Maxent approach achieved an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.933, while the Kappa index for CART, and the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) indicate values greater than 80 % for both years 1984 and 2021. The results show that only about 0.16 % (303,644.76 ha) of Algeria’s land area is suitable for DPP. Nocturnal light and NDVI emerged as significant factors in predicting the distribution of date palms in Algeria. Over the last 37 years (1984 to 2021), DPP has doubled to 71,156.67 ha, with rate of change rate of 1923.15 ha per year, due to strategic agricultural policy programmes. Clearly, the DPP area is increasing towards the suitable area, but with a low significant rate within both zones 1 and 2. Date production is mainly concentrated in the province of Biskra, yielding 153,135.66 tonnes in 2021. The northeastern region shows a higher intensity of DPP. The results of this study can be used for management, monitoring, and future expansion efforts in DPP areas.