Global Socioeconomic Data for Understanding

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Global Socioeconomic Data for Understanding
Human Impacts on Biodiversity
Urban Extents and Ecosystems Produced by CIESIN,
the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP)
builds on the Gridded Population of the World
(v.3) database by incorporating urban and rural
information. The aim is to provide globally
consistent and spatially explicit human
population information and data for use in
research, policy making, and communications,
allowing new insights into urban population
distribution and the global extents of human
settlements. Below, an alpha version of GRUMP is
superimposed on the world's ecosystems. The
analysis finds that 10.2 of land in the coastal
zone area is urban, followed by 6.4 of land in
cultivated systems. The next highest is lands
surrounding inland waters (3.0). The least urban
areas are in mountain areas. Overall the data set
estimates that 2.7 of the Earth's land area is
urban.
Alex de Sherbinin and Marc Levy, CIESIN, The
Earth Institute, Columbia University correspondin
g author adesherbinin_at_ciesin.columbia.edu Joint
Workshop on NASA Biodiversity, Terrestrial
Ecology, and Related Applied Sciences College
Park, MD, 21-25 August 2006
Abstract Despite the longstanding recognition of
the human drivers of habitat loss and
over-exploitation of biotic resources, and
conversely the impacts of biodiversity loss on
society, the development of global socioeconomic
and environmental datasets to support research on
global-scale human-environment interactions has
been slow. We report here on recent efforts to
improve global spatial data on population
distribution, urban extent, income distribution
and poverty, natural hazards, the human influence
on the environment, and environmental
sustainability. We highlight selected
applications of these data in the realm of
biodiversity science. We also identify key gaps
and areas for future development, e.g., with
regard to development of consistent time series
and projections and data on human infrastructure.
Environmental Sustainability Together with
colleagues at Yale University, CIESIN has
developed four releases of the Environmental
Sustainability Index (ESI) and, in 2006, a new
product the Environmental Performance Index
(EPI). The data sets underlying the ESI and EPI
are many and varied, but increasingly the team is
relying on global spatial data sets. One example
is the Ecoregion Protection indicator in the EPI,
based on the World Database of Protected Areas
and WWF Ecoregions. This indicator measures the
degree to which a country achieves the target of
protecting at least 10 of each terrestrial biome
within its borders. The map extract (below left)
illustrates protection for a portion
of
Central America (Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador
and parts of Mexico and Honduras). The table
below shows the proximity to the target of 10
protection on a 0-100 scale.

• Where To From Here?
• To meet current and future needs for human
  dimensions research, there is a need to develop
  several data sets
• Time series of population distributions in the
  past and into the future
• Spatially explicit urban population projections
• A higher quality global non-commercial roads
  database
• Improved spatially explicit global GNP maps
  based on night-time lights, pop distribution and
  infrastructure maps
• National and sub-national data on environmental
  governance
• Maps of ecosystem services

Proximity to Ecoregion Protection Target Proximity to Ecoregion Protection Target
Country Target 100
Belize 100.0
Costa Rica 100.0
Panama 96.8
Guatemala 91.2
Nicaragua 86.5
Honduras 84.2
Mexico 72.0
El Salvador 37.7
The Human Footprint and the Last of the
Wild Human influence on the earths land surface
is a global driver of ecological processes on the
planet, on par with climatic trends, geological
forces and astronomical variations. The Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS) and CIESIN joined
together to systematically map and measure the
human influence on the earths land surface today
(map bottom left). Our analysis indicates that
83 of the earth's land surface is influenced
directly by human beings, whether through human
land uses human access from roads, railways or
major rivers electrical infrastructure
(indicated by lights detected at night) or
direct occupancy by human populations. The Human
Footprint was then overlaid on the worlds
ecosystems to generate a map of the Last of the
Wild the worlds remaining truly wild areas
(map bottom right).
The Human Footprint, Ecosystems and
Poverty Analysis of the Human Footprint (at left)
in conjunction with the Global Poverty Map data
(at right) reveals that the distribution of the
poor population tends more towards very
transformed ecosystems, whereas the non-poor
population is predominantly in extremely
transformed areas (see figure below left). What
emerges from this analysis is how few of the
worlds very poor and extremely poor live in
regions that are classified as somewhat or
extremely wild we estimate only 13.9
million. An analysis of the poor by ecosystem
types (table bottom right) reveals that the poor
are disproportionately in regions characterized
by tropical subtropical moist broadleaf forests
(40 of all poor), followed by deserts and
shrublands (20 of all poor), and sub-tropical
dry broadleaf forests (13 of all poor). Among
the extremely poor, 13 (78m people) live in the
tropical grasslands and savannas of West Africa,
another 10 (57m people) live in tropical dry
forests of South Asia. The tropical moist forests
of West Africa and South Asia both house about 8
of the extremely poor, respectively (or 48m
people each).
Global Poverty Map With funding from the
World Bank and the Japanese government, CIESIN
sought to characterize the global distribution of
poverty and enhance understanding of the
geographic and biophysical conditions under which
the poor live. The project produced a number of
spatial data sets, including global maps of
infant mortality (see map above) and
malnutrition. For the analysis in the box at
left, we used the global sub-national infant
mortality rate database to assign ¼ degree grids
to poverty rate group-ings as follows
Human Footprint
Last of the Wild
Distribution of Poor Populations by Biome (millions of people) Distribution of Poor Populations by Biome (millions of people) Distribution of Poor Populations by Biome (millions of people) Distribution of Poor Populations by Biome (millions of people)
Biome Very Poor Extr-emely Poor Total
1 Tropical Subtrop Moist Broadleaf 455 203 658
2 Tropical Subtrop. Dry Broadleaf 161 63 224
3 Tropical Subtropical Coniferous 12 0.6 12
4 Temperate Broadleaf Mixed 20 3.0 24
5 Temperate Conifer Forests 6.1 1.8 8.0
6 Boreal Forests/Taiga 0 0 0
7 Tropical Subtropical Grasslands 95 217 313
8 Shrublands 5.6 2.3 7.8
9 Flooded Grasslands Savannas 0.8 5.4 6.3
10 Montane Grasslands Shrublnds 22 43 65
11 Tundra 0 0 0
12 Mediterranean Woodlnds Scrub 3.8 0 3.8
13 Deserts Xeric Shrublands 272 47 319
14 Mangroves 15 8.6 24
TOTAL 1,070 595 1,664
Population by Poverty Wilderness Categories
Infant Mortality Groups Infant Mortality Groups Infant Mortality Groups Infant Mortality Groups
Group IMR range of Pop. of Land
Not Poor IMR lt 15 24.4 27.8
Moderately Poor 15 lt IMR lt 32 24.6 27.0
Poor 32 lt IMR lt 65 21.9 19.8
Very Poor 65 lt IMR lt 100 17.6 9.2
Extremely Poor IMR gt 100 9.8 13.5