Journal Article

Global terrestrial Human Footprint maps for 1993 and 2009

Possingham, Hugh P., Laurance, William F., Venter, Oscar, Sanderson, Eric W., Magrach, Ainhoa, Levy, Marc A., Beher, Jutta, Fekete, Balázs M., Jones, Kendall R., Watson, James E.M., Allan, James R., Wood, Peter

2016

Overview

Remotely-sensed and bottom-up survey information were compiled on eight variables measuring the direct and indirect human pressures on the environment globally in 1993 and 2009. This represents not only the most current information of its type, but also the first temporally-consistent set of Human Footprint maps. Data on human pressures were acquired or developed for: 1) built environments, 2) population density, 3) electric infrastructure, 4) crop lands, 5) pasture lands, 6) roads, 7) railways, and 8) navigable waterways. Pressures were then overlaid to create the standardized Human Footprint maps for all non-Antarctic land areas. A validation analysis using scored pressures from 3114×1 km 2 random sample plots revealed strong agreement with the Human Footprint maps. We anticipate that the Human Footprint maps will find a range of uses as proxies for human disturbance of natural systems. The updated maps should provide an increased understanding of the human pressures that drive macro-ecological patterns, as well as for tracking environmental change and informing conservation science and application. Design Type(s) data integration objective Measurement Type(s) anthropogenic environmental process Technology Type(s) digital curation Factor Type(s) Sample Characteristic(s) Earth • anthropogenic terrestrial biome • agricultural feature • road • railway • transport feature Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 631/158/672 / 704/172/4081 / Data Descriptor / Humanities and Social Sciences / multidisciplinary / Science