Abstract
The article is devoted to analyzing the dynamics of spatio-temporal changes in water bodies within the Semipalatinsk Test Site using remote sensing data based on the Google Earth Engine platform, with the aim of developing a map of surface water and irrigation systems to support landscape planning of the area. Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, ERA5-Land climatic data, and the SRTM digital elevation model were used as the primary input datasets. Water surfaces were extracted using the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) method. The results revealed that the largest extents of water surfaces were observed in years characterized by cold and snowy winters (2000 and 2010), whereas the smallest extents occurred during warm and low-snow periods (1996, 2012, and 2024). The proportion of temporary water bodies exceeds 60%, reflecting the instability of the hydrological regime and its strong dependence on climatic variability. The use of modern platforms such as Google Earth Engine for identifying spatio-temporal changes in water bodies has proven to be effective and demonstrates great potential for water resource management and dynamic assessment. The obtained results can be applied for environmental monitoring and landscape planning in the development of the former test site areas for agricultural purposes.