The mining sector disturbs significant areas of Kazakhstan’s farmland every year. However, the regulatory control of how those lands are reclaimed in the context of sustainable agricultural land use remains empirically understudied. This article aims to identify and systematically describe the institutional gaps between the current regulatory framework for reclaiming subsoil-disturbed lands and the requirements of sustainable agricultural land use in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The methodology has three components: a content analysis of 45 regulatory documents from 2018-2024 against a protocol of nine indicators grouped into three blocks; an expert survey of 22 specialists from four agency groups, using a 7-point Likert scale; and correlation analysis using Kendall’s coefficient. The Regulatory Compliance Index at the regional level (0.21) is more than half the national figure (0.58), and the difference is statistically significant (H=14.7, p<0.01, η²=0.31). None of the 18 regional documents includes triggers for revising reclamation plans when land condition deteriorates. Regional specialists rated current instruments as adequate only 14% of the time. The Kendall’s coefficient between regulatory intensity and the share of completed reclamation work came in at τ=0.48 (p<0.05). Six institutional gaps were identified, three of them classed as high criticality: methodological, procedural, and institutional. The results matter for the achievement of SDGs 2, 15, and 17 at the territorial level.
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