ASSESSMENT OF TOURISM AND RECREATIONAL POTENTIAL OF CLIMATIC RESOURCES OF THE AKMOLA REGION (KAZAKHSTAN).

The article presents the results of assessing the comfort of climatic conditions for the development of tourism in the Akmola region, including in the Shchuchinsk-Borovoye resort area. The climate is one of the resources, determining the spatial organization of recreation and tourism. Any tourism and recreational activity should be based on the results of the assessment of the tourism and recreational potential of the territory. The tourism and recreational potential of the climatic resources of the Akmola region was assessed through the widely used Tourism Climatic Index, developed by Z. Mieczkowski (1985). This index integrates 7 climatic indicators: maximum daily temperature, minimum daily relative humidity, mean daily temperature, mean daily relative humidity, total precipitation, total hours of sunshine, average wind speed. The data of climatic indicators of the Akmola region were integrated according to the ranked scale under the conditions of climate comfort (comfortable, moderately comfortable, moderately uncomfortable and uncomfortable). Based on the obtained values, a map of regionalization of the territory of the Akmola region was created using GIS technologies. Comfort air temperature in the Akmola region is observed mainly in summer, and beside that, wind speeds are getting lower by the summer. But, the maximum amount of precipitation per year falls on the summer period, which indicates the relevance of reliable and timely short-term forecasts, especially for July. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]