Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Areas

A map of SEDAC′s the Human Footprint illustrates the extent to which Africa′s land area is influenced by humans.

A recent survey of African forest elephants has revealed a startling reduction in that animal's population and geographic range over the past decade.  Human population density, as measured by SEDAC's Gridded Population of the World (GPW v3) data set, and nearness to human infrastructure, as indicated by SEDAC's Human Influence Index (HII v2), are two of the strongest predictors of that decline along with hunting intensity, poor governance and absence of law enforcement.

Sensing Our Planet: NASA Earth Science Research Features 2008 features an article on how SEDAC data was used for the 2008 Environmental Performance Index and other environmental assessments; CIESIN’s Marc Levy is interviewed.