Anthropogenic Biomes

Methods

A detailed description of the methods utilized to produce the data, as well as research results, are described in Ellis and Ramankutty (download PDF ). Anthropogenic biomes were identified and mapped using a multi-stage procedure based on population (urban, non-urban), land use (percent area of pasture, crops, irrigation, rice and urban land) and land cover (percent area of trees and bare earth). Input datasets include population data (Landscan 2005), land use data (percent area under cropland, pasture, irrigation and rice) and land cover (vegetation continuous fields tree cover and bare earth proportion layers).

Figure 1. Global Map of Anthropogenic Biomes

The multi-stage procedure began by first separating “anthropogenic” cells from “wild” cells based on presence of population, crops, or pastures. The anthropogenic cells were then stratified into population density classes: namely “dense”, “residential”, “populated” and “remote” based on the density of their non-urban population. Then cluster analysis was used to identify natural groupings within each of the strata identified above. Finally the clusters derived above were labeled, and organized into logical groupings, based on their populations, land-use and land-cover characteristics, and their regional distribution, yielding the 18 anthropogenic biome classes and three wild biome classes.