Abstract
Administrative boundary reform can produce apparent changes in land statistics when reporting units are redefined.This study separately analyzed official legal land categories, satellite-derived physical land cover, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and scenario-based agricultural suitability in the newly delimited Almaty Region, Kazakhstan.Official land-balance records for 2019-2023 were combined with Sentinel-2 growing-season NDVI composites, 2021 and 2023 Esri/Impact Observatory land-cover maps, the Copernicus Digital Elevation Model, OpenStreetMap data, and constrained multi-criteria modeling.The 53.0% reduction in the reported regional area in 2022 reflected the creation of the Zhetysu Region rather than physical land loss.Between 2022 and 2023, official agricultural land increased by 216.0 thousand ha and reserve land decreased by 212.8 thousand ha.These changes were not matched to individual parcels and are not directly comparable with the approximately 137 thousand ha net cropland gain detected by the separate 2021-2023 satellite analysis because the datasets represent different objects, periods, and spatial coverage.Mean and median growing-season NDVI were lower in 2023 than in 2019, but no attribution to climate variability or land-use change was attempted.The conservation-oriented scenario was the most spatially stable, and approximately 312.6 thousand ha were included in the priority set under all three scenarios.These zones represent screening priorities rather than verified reserve land and should be validated through cadastral checks and soil, water, and field assessments before being used to inform planning decisions.