Spatiotemporal analysis and identifying the driving forces of land use change in the Abay district (Karagandy Region, Kazakhstan)

\nLand use and cover change (LUCC) affects the nature of human activities in a particular area. Therefore, the manifestation of the driving forces of these changes plays a decisive role. This paper analyses the LULC dynamics of the Abay district of Karagandy oblast from 2016 to 2023. The study’s main objective is to find the driving forces of land use based on the integrated assessment of spatio-temporal data (STD) and socio-economic, climatic and environmental indicators (SECEI). Classification of Sentinel- 2 images into LULC classes is carried out using the Random Forest (RF) algorithm on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The driving factors were assessed using principal component analysis (PCA) and linear regression (LR). The results obtained can be used to guide the development planning of the territory.\n