Science Magazine has a great article titled Domesticated Nature. To summarize the article, humans have exercised their impulse to perpetuate and propagate themselves, and in doing so, we have domesticated landscapes and ecosystems in ways that enhance our food supplies, reduce exposure to predators and natural dangers, and promote commerce. The article contains two maps which shows just how much this footprint means.
Figure 1. The human footprint on Earth. Human impact is expressed as the percentage of human influence relative to the maximum influence recorded for each biome. Data include human population density, land transformation (including global landcover, roads, and cities), electrical power infrastructure (NOAA night-lights data), and access (via roads, navigable rivers, and coastline) to the land.
Figure 2. Earth’s shipping lanes and network of roads. Each shipping lane data point represents the location where an expendable probe was dropped for sampling of ocean temperature from 14 October 2004 to 15 October 2005.
Citation: Kareiva, P., et al. (2007) Domesticated Nature: Shaping Landscapes and Ecosystems for Human Welfare. Science 316, 1866
I was actually kind of surprised by how much of the Earth is almost devoid of human meddling. I had thought there would be virtually no territory in that initials 0-10% window.
That having been said, I’m not about to burn my Sierra Club card. The amount of red on the map is as distressing as the white is surprising.
deserts and deep tropical forest ?
that’s all the 0-10 window is.
Not just deserts and deep tropical forest (also Tibetan Plateau and signifigant parts of the Siberian taiga and some Central Asian steppe), but you make a valid point. The largely untouched regions are also – suprise – largely undesirable or uninhabitable. That said I was pleased to see huge swathes of the western United States (even California) largely undeveloped. Of course, anybody who’s driven across Wyoming knows this, but it is good to see.
The only thing that surprised me about the map was the dark red so close to the southern border of the Sahara. I knew west Africa was crowded, but I thought it was closer to the coast.
well here’s a map of density of africa: http://www.na.unep.net/globalpop/africa/Appendix_6e.html
so something else makes that region so red.. land transformation ? access ?
well actually no, if Sahel appears more red than the really crowded Great Lakes, it’s because of the Great Lake region can support that big of a population.
in semi-desertic Sahel, you don’t need the same density to have the same effect.
Maps can mislead: In regards to less habitation in the West of the U.S., just because this map shows less human footprint, does not mean there is less of a footprint. In SE New Mexico, and NW Texas (appearing by and large white on map), the area is heavily mined for oil & gasses with a very complex web of liguids & gas pipes running throughout the desert areas – not to mention huge wind generators…
Send any suggestions on where to find a better global map on shipping lanes. Thankx.