Abstract: The Ili River-Balkhash Lake Basin is affected by both climate change and human activities, and its land cover types have undergone significant changes.Rational management of land cover is of great significance for coordinating water resource allocation and regional economic development.Based on land cover data from 1992 to 2019, this study analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics and driving factors of land cover changes in the basin.A PLUS model (Patch-generating Land Use Simulation Model) was then used to predict future land cover types under different scenarios.The results indicated that the main land cover types in the study area during the historical period were forestland, grassland, and bare land.Among them, the area of cropland and urban land continuously increased, while the area of bare land continuously decreased.The PLUS model was validated using 2019 land cover data as a reference, with an overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient of 0.762 and 0.718, respectively, indicating good model simulation performance.Under different scenarios, land cover types exhibited significantly different transformation patterns.Under the ecological priority scenario, the impact of human activities was effectively constrained, leading to a significant increase in vegetation cover and wetland/swamp areas.The transformation trends under the natural development and human activity scenarios were relatively similar, but land cover transformation was more intense under the human activity scenario, which was unfavorable for regional sustainable development.The conclusions of this study can provide a scientific basis for optimizing the allocation of land resources and water resource management in the basin to achieve different development objectives.