Data for detailed temporal mapping of global human modification from 1990 to 2017

Data on the extent, patterns, and trends of human land use are critically important to support global and national priorities for conservation and sustainable development. To inform these issues, we created a series of detailed global datasets for 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2017 to evaluate temporal changes and spatial patterns of land use modification of terrestrial lands (excluding Antarctica). These data were calculated using the degree of human modification approach that combines the proportion of a pixel of a given stressor (i.e. footprint) times the intensity of that stressor (ranging from 0 to 1.0). Our novel datasets are detailed (0.09 km^2 resolution), temporally consistent (for 1990-2015, every 5 years), comprehensive (11 change stressors, 14 current), robust (using an established framework and incorporating classification errors and parameter uncertainty), and strongly validated. We also provide a dataset that represents ~2017 conditions and has 14 stressors for an even more comprehensive dataset, but the 2017 results should not be used to calculate change with the other datasets (1990-2015). Note that because of repo file size limits, the datasets for the for the HM overall for 1990 and 1995, as well as major stressors for all years, are located this Google Drive.

This version 1.5 provides the following updates:

1. Datasets are provided for each of the 6 stressor groups: built-up areas (BU), agricultural/timber harvest (AG), extractive energy and mining (EX), human intrusions (HI), natural system modifications (NS), and transportation & infrastructure (TI), available now at 300 m resolution for each of the time steps in the 1990-2015 time series.

2. It provides the addition datasets for the years 1995 and 2005, calculated using linear interpolation when stressor data do not provide data at the specific year.

3. The ESA 150 m water-mask dataset (Lamarche et al. 2017) was used to provide better and more consistent alignment of datasets at the ocean-land-inland water interfaces.

4. The built-up stressor uses an updated version of the Global Human Settlement Layer (v2022A).

5. Values provided are 32-bit floating point values, with human modification values ranging from 0.0 to 1.0.

For more details on the approach and methods, please see: Theobald, D. M., Kennedy, C., Chen, B., Oakleaf, J., Baruch-Mordo, S., and Kiesecker, J.: Earth transformed: detailed mapping of global human modification from 1990 to 2017, Earth Syst. Sci. Data., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2019-252, 2020.

Version 1.5 was completed in collaboration with the Center for Biodiversity and Global Change at Yale University and supported by the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation.