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There is an increasing availability of geospatial data describing patterns of human settlement and population such as various global remote-sensing based built-up land layers, fine-grained census-based population estimates, and publicly available cadastral and building footprint data. This development constitutes new integrative modeling opportunities to characterize the continuum of urban, peri-urban, and rural settlements and populations. However, little research has been done regarding the agreement between such data products in measuring human presence which is measured by different proxy variables (i.e. presence of built-up structures derived from different remote sensors, census-derived population counts, or cadastral land parcels). In this work, we quantitatively evaluate and cross-compare the ability of such data to model the urban continuum, using a unique, integrated validation database of cadastral and building footprint data, U.S. census data, and three different versions of the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) derived from remotely sensed data. We identify advantages and shortcomings of these data types across different geographic settings in the U.S., which will inform future data users on implications of data accuracy and suitability for a given application, even in data-poor regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data on global population distribution are a strategic resource currently in high demand in an age of new Development Agendas that call for universal inclusiveness of people. However, quality, detail, and age of census data varies significantly by country and suffers from shortcomings that propagate to derived population grids and their applications. In this work, the improved capabilities of recent remote sensing-derived global settlement data to detect and mitigate major discrepancies with census data is explored. Open layers mapping built-up presence were used to revise census units deemed as 'unpopulated' and to harmonize population distribution along coastlines. Automated procedures to detect and mitigate these anomalies, while minimizing changes to census geometry, preserving the regional distribution of population, and the overall counts were developed, tested, and applied. The two procedures employed for the detection of deficiencies in global census data obtained high rates of true positives, after verification and validation. Results also show that the targeted anomalies were significantly mitigated and are encouraging for further uses of free and open geospatial data derived from remote sensing in complementing and improving conventional sources of fundamental population statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring of the human-induced changes and the availability of reliable and methodologically consistent urban area maps are essential to support sustainable urban development on a global scale. The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) is a project funded by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre, which aims at providing scientific methods and systems for reliable and automatic mapping of built-up areas from remote sensing data. In the frame of the GHSL, the opportunities offered by the recent availability of Sentinel-2 data are being explored using a novel image classification method, called Symbolic Machine Learning (SML), for detailed urban land cover mapping. In this paper, a preliminary test was implemented with the purpose of: (i) assessing the applicability of the SML classifier on Sentinel-2 imagery; (ii) evaluating the complementarity of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2; and (iii) understanding the added-value of Sentinel-2 with respect to Landsat for improving global high-resolution human settlement mapping. The overall objective is to explore areas of improvement, including the possibility of synergistic use of the different sensors. The results showed that noticeable improvement of the quality of the classification could be gained from the increased spatial detail and from the thematic contents of Sentinel-2 compared to the Landsat derived product as well as from the complementarity between Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The breakthrough developments in geospatial technologies and the increasing availability of spatial data make geoinformation a business and a decisional element to the management. Hence, it is important to have a management plan to factor in practical and feasible data sources, in building geo applications. The authors of this paper are motivated by the fact that right data sources could outclass in-house resources in various application scenarios. This paper outlines pragmatic cases for the tangible benefits of the existing potential data and expeditious patterns for digital earth. This work also proposes ‘good-enough’ solutions based on the pragmatic cases, available literature, and the 3D city model developed that could be sufficient in contriving the objectives of the common public usage and open business models. To demonstrate this approach, the paper encapsulated the low-cost development of virtual 3D city model using publicly available cadastral data and web services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 aspires to "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable", and the introduction of an explicit urban goal testifies to the importance of urbanisation. The understanding of the process of urbanisation and the capacity to monitor the SDGs require a wealth of open, reliable, locally yet globally comparable data, and a fully-fledged data revolution. In this framework, the European Commission–Joint Research Centre has developed a suite of (open and free) data and tools named Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) which maps the human presence on Earth (built-up areas, population distribution and settlement typologies) between 1975 and 2015. The GHSL supplies information on the progressive expansion of built-up areas on Earth and population dynamics in human settlements, with both sources of information serving as baseline data to quantify land use efficiency (LUE), listed as a Tier II indicator for SDG 11 (11.3.1). In this paper, we present the profile of the LUE across several territorial scales between 1990 and 2015, highlighting diverse development trajectories and the land take efficiency of different human settlements. Our results show that (i) the GHSL framework allows us to estimate LUE for the entire planet at several territorial scales, opening the opportunity of lifting the LUE indicator from its Tier II classification; (ii) the current formulation of the LUE is substantially subject to path dependency; and (iii) it requires additional spatially-explicit metrics for its interpretation. We propose the Achieved Population Density in Expansion Areas and the Marginal Land Consumption per New Inhabitant metrics for this purpose. The study is planetary and multi-temporal in coverage, demonstrating the value of well-designed, open and free, fine-scale geospatial information on human settlements in supporting policy and monitoring progress made towards meeting the SDGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Better and more detailed analyses of global human exposure to hazards and associated disaster risk require improved geoinformation on population distribution and densities. In particular, issues of temporal and spatial resolution are important for determining the capacity for assessing changes in these distributions. We combine the best-available global population grids with latest data on volcanoes, to assess and characterize the worldwide distribution of population from 1975–2015 in relation to recent volcanism. Both Holocene volcanoes and those where there is evidence of significant eruptions are considered. A comparative analysis is conducted for the volcanic hot spots of Southeast Asia and Central America. Results indicate that more than 8% of the world's 2015 population lived within 100 km of a volcano with at least one significant eruption, and more than 1 billion people (14.3%) lived within 100 km of a Holocene volcano, with human concentrations in this zone increasing since 1975 above the global population growth rate. While overall spatial patterns of population density have been relatively stable in time, their variation with distance is not monotonic, with a higher concentration of people between 10 and 20 km from volcanoes. We find that in last 40 years in Southeast Asia the highest population growth rates have occurred in close proximity to volcanoes (within 10 km), whereas in Central America these are observed farther away (beyond 50 km), especially after 1990 and for Holocene volcanoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) produces new global spatial information, evidence-based analytics describing the human presence on the planet that is based mainly on two quantitative factors: (i) the spatial distribution (density) of built-up structures and (ii) the spatial distribution (density) of resident people. Both of the factors are observed in the long-term temporal domain and per unit area, in order to support the analysis of the trends and indicators for monitoring the implementation of the 2030 Development Agenda and the related thematic agreements. The GHSL uses various input data, including global, multi-temporal archives of high-resolution satellite imagery, census data, and volunteered geographic information. In this paper, we present a global estimate for the Land Use Efficiency (LUE) indicator—SDG 11.3.1, for circa 10,000 urban centers, calculating the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate between 1990 and 2015. In addition, we analyze the characteristics of the GHSL information to demonstrate how the original frameworks of data (gridded GHSL data) and tools (GHSL tools suite), developed from Earth Observation and integrated with census information, could support Sustainable Development Goals monitoring. In particular, we demonstrate the potential of gridded, open and free, local yet globally consistent, multi-temporal data in filling the data gap for Sustainable Development Goal 11. The results of our research demonstrate that there is potential to raise SDG 11.3.1 from a Tier II classification (manifesting unavailability of data) to a Tier I, as GHSL provides a global baseline for the essential variables called by the SDG 11.3.1 metadata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to create a dataset of building locations in Poland from the 1970s–1980s. The source information was the historical 1:10 000 Polish topographic map. Building footprints were detected and extracted from approximately 8,500 scanned map sheets using the Mask R-CNN model implemented in Esri ArcGIS Pro software, and converted to point building locations. The dataset of building locations covers the entire country and contains approximately 11 million points representing buildings. The accuracy of the dataset was assessed manually on randomly selected map sheets. The overall accuracy is 95% (F1 = 0.98). The dataset may be used in conjunction with various contemporary land use, land cover and cadastral datasets in a broad range of applications related to long-term changes in rural and urban areas, including urban sprawl and its environmental and social consequences. It can also serve as a highly reliable reference dataset for regional or global settlement products derived, e.g., from early Landsat data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Exposure is reported to be the biggest determinant of disaster risk, it is continuously growing and by monitoring and understanding its variations over time it is possible to address disaster risk reduction, also at the global level. This work uses Earth observation image archives to derive information on human settlements that are used to quantify exposure to five natural hazards. This paper first summarizes the procedure used within the global human settlement layer (GHSL) project to extract global built-up area from 40 year deep Landsat image archive and the procedure to derive global population density by disaggregating population census data over built-up area. Then it combines the global built-up area and the global population density data with five global hazard maps to produce global layers of built-up area and population exposure to each single hazard for the epochs 1975, 1990, 2000, and 2015 to assess changes in exposure to each hazard over 40 years. Results show that more than 35% of the global population in 2015 was potentially exposed to earthquakes (with a return period of 475 years); one billion people are potentially exposed to floods (with a return period of 100 years). In light of the expansion of settlements over time and the changing nature of meteorological and climatological hazards, a repeated acquisition of human settlement information through remote sensing and other data sources is required to update exposure and risk maps, and to better understand disaster risk and define appropriate disaster risk reduction strategies as well as risk management practices. Regular updates and refined spatial information on human settlements are foreseen in the near future with the Copernicus Sentinel Earth observation constellation that will measure the evolving nature of exposure to hazards. These improvements will contribute to more detailed and data-driven understanding of disaster risk as advocated by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few decades the magnitude and impacts of planetary urban transformations have become increasingly evident to scientists and policymakers. The ability to understand these processes remained limited in terms of territorial scope and comparative capacity for a long time: data availability and harmonization were among the main constraints. Contemporary technological assets, such as remote sensing and machine learning, allow for analyzing global changes in the settlement process with unprecedented detail. The Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) project set out to produce detailed datasets to analyze and monitor the spatial footprint of human settlements and their population, which are key indicators for the global policy commitments of the 2030 Development Agenda. In the GHSL, Earth Observation plays a key role in the detection of built-up areas from the Landsat imagery upon which population distribution is modelled. The combination of remote sensing imagery and population modelling allows for generating globally consistent and detailed information about the spatial distribution of built-up areas and population. The GHSL data facilitate a multi-temporal analysis of human settlements with global coverage. The results presented in this article focus on the patterns of development of built-up areas, population and settlements. The article reports about the present status of global urbanization (2015) and its evolution since 1990 by applying to the GHSL the Degree of Urbanisation definition of the European Commission Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG-Regio) and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT). The analysis portrays urbanization dynamics at a regional level and per country income classes to show disparities and inequalities. This study analyzes how the 6.1 billion urban dwellers are distributed worldwide. Results show the degree of global urbanization (which reached 85% in 2015), the more than 100 countries in which urbanization has increased between 1990 and 2015, and the tens of countries in which urbanization is today above the global average and where urbanization grows the fastest. The paper sheds light on the key role of urban areas for development, on the patterns of urban development across the regions of the world and on the role of a new generation of data to advance urbanization theory and reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is constructing three new nuclear ballistic missile silo fields near the cities of Yumen, Hami, and Ordos as part of a significant buildup of its nuclear weapon arsenal. Once operational, these missile silos will likely be included as targets in U.S. strategic counterforce war plans. Such plans call for using one or two nuclear warheads to strike each silo. Such attacks can generate large amounts of radioactive debris that are then transported by local winds and can deliver lethal doses of radiation to population hundreds of kilometers away. Here, we compute radioactive fallout from counterforce attacks on the three new alleged missile silo fields using the combination of a nuclear war simulator and modern atmospheric particle transport software and recent archived weather data. We find that the construction of these new silos will put tens of millions of Chinese civilians at risk of lethal fallout including in East China. In particular, the relatively short distance between the Ordos missile field and Beijing and the local winds patterns for the region, suggest that about half of the 21 million inhabitants of the Chinese capital could die following a counterforce strike, even if given advanced warning to shelter in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data accurately representing the population distribution at the subnational level within countries is critical to policy and decision makers for many applications. Call data records (CDRs) have shown great promise for this, providing much higher temporal and spatial resolutions compared to traditional data sources. For CDRs to be integrated with other data and in order to effectively inform and support policy and decision making, mobile phone user must be distributed from the cell tower level into administrative units. This can be done in different ways and it is often not considered which method produces the best representation of the underlying population distribution. Using anonymised CDRs in Namibia between 2011 and 2013, four distribution methods were assessed at multiple administrative unit levels. Estimates of user density per administrative unit were ranked for each method and compared against the corresponding census-derived population densities, using Kendall's tau-b rank tests. Seasonal and trend decomposition using Loess (STL) and multivariate clustering was subsequently used to identify patterns of seasonal user variation and investigate how different distribution methods can impact these. Results show that the accuracy of the results of each distribution method is influenced by the considered administrative unit level. While marginal differences between methods are displayed at "coarser" level 1, the use of mobile phone tower ranges provided the most accurate results for Namibia at finer levels 2 and 3. The use of STL is helpful to recognise the impact of the underlying distribution methods on further analysis, with the degree of consensus between methods decreasing as spatial scale increases. Multivariate clustering delivers valuable insights into which units share a similar seasonal user behaviour. The higher the number of prescribed clusters, the more the results obtained using different distribution methods differ. However, two major seasonal patterns were identified across all distribution methods, levels and most cluster numbers: (a) units with a 15% user decrease in August and (b) units with a 20–30% user increase in December. Both patterns are likely to be partially linked to school holidays and people going on vacation and/or visiting relatives and friends. This study highlights the need and importance of investigating CDRs in detail before conducting subsequent analysis like seasonal and trend decomposition. In particular, CDRs need to be investigated both in terms of their area and population coverage, as well as in relation to the appropriate distribution method to use based on the spatial scale of the specific application. The use of inappropriate methods can change observed seasonal patterns and impact the derived conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the continuous growth in the population has significantly changed the area of human settlements across the globe. The change of human settlements has brought great challenges to human development, environmental change, resource allocation, and disaster prediction and prevention. In the current paper, we integrate data products provided by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre with multi-source remote sensing data to analyze the changing trends of global human settlements under varying geographical distributions from 1990 to 2014. The results demonstrate that on the global scale, human settlements are generally distributed in Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the eastern United States, the Gulf Coast and the coast of Oceania, with most of them distributed in urban agglomerations and coastal areas. Global human settlements have continued to grow over the past 25 years, mainly in East Asia, Western Europe and the United States. The area of human settlements in eastern Europe has been slightly reduced. The distribution of human settlements is affected by climate, water and terrain conditions. Humans were more likely to have settled in temperate regions with wetter climates, and most of the human settlements are located within 500 km of the coastline and 30 km of land-based water sources. Our results can provide insights into further investigations of the spatio-temporal dynamics of human settlements and its connections to ecological and environmental issues in a changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Household surveys are the main source of demographic, health and socio-economic data in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). To conduct such a survey, census population information mapped into enumeration areas (EAs) typically serves a sampling frame from which to generate a random sample. However, the use of census information to generate this sample frame can be problematic as in many LMIC contexts, such data are often outdated or incomplete, potentially introducing coverage issues into the sample frame. Increasingly, where census data are outdated or unavailable, modelled population datasets in the gridded form are being used to create household survey sampling frames. Methods: Previously this process was done by either sampling from a set of the uniform grid cells (UGC) which are then manually subdivided to achieve the desired population size, or by sampling very small grid cells then aggregating cells into larger units to achieve a minimum population per survey cluster. The former approach is time and resource-intensive as well as results in substantial heterogeneity in the output sampling units, while the latter can complicate the calculation of unbiased sampling weights. Using the context of Somalia, which has not had a full census since 1987, we implemented a quadtree algorithm for the first time to create a population sampling frame. The approach uses gridded population estimates and it is based on the idea of a quadtree decomposition in which an area successively subdivided into four equal size quadrants, until the content of each quadrant is homogenous. Results: The quadtree approach used here produced much more homogeneous sampling units than the UGC (1 × 1 km and 3 × 3 km) approach. At the national and pre-war regional scale, the standard deviation and coefficient of variation, as indications of homogeneity, were calculated for the output sampling units using quadtree and UGC 1 × 1 km and 3 × 3 km approaches to create the sampling frame and the results showed outstanding performance for quadtree approach. Conclusion: Our approach reduces the manual burden of manually subdividing UGC into highly populated areas, while allowing for correct calculation of sampling weights. The algorithm produces a relatively homogenous population counts within the sampling units, reducing the variation in the weights and improving the precision of the resulting estimates. Furthermore, a protocol of creating approximately equal-sized blocks and using tablets for randomized selection of a household in each block mitigated potential selection bias by enumerators. The approach shows labour, time and cost-saving and points to the potential use in wider contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]