Using Classified and Unclassified Land Cover Data to Estimate the Footprint of Human Settlement

Authors

  • Charlie Frye Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc
  • Dawn J. Wright Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2997-7611
  • Earl Nordstrand Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc
  • Carmelle Terborgh Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc
  • Jeanne Foust Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2018-020

Keywords:

Settlement, Gridded Population, Landsat 8, Landscape Disturbance

Abstract

Accurate, up-to-date maps of and georeferenced data about human population distribution are essential for meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals progress measures, for supporting real-time crisis mapping and response efforts, and for performing many demographic and economic analyses. In December 2014, Esri published the initial version of the World Population Estimate (WPE) image service to ArcGIS Online. The service represents a dasymetric footprint of human settlement at 250-meter resolution. It is global and contains an estimate of the 2013 population for each populated cell. In 2016 Esri published an additional image service representing the earth’s population in 2015 at 162-meter resolution. Esri’s WPE is produced by combining classified land cover data indicating predominantly built-up or agricultural locations with Landsat8 Panchromatic imagery, road intersections, and known populated places. The model detects where settlement is likely to exist beyond the areas classified as predominantly built up. The result is a global dasymetric raster surface of the footprint of settlement with a score of the likelihood of human settlement for each cell of the footprint. Population data are apportioned to this settlement likelihood surface by overlaying population counts in polygons representing census enumeration units or political units representing population surveys. This paper presents the method developed at Esri for producing the estimate of settlement likelihood.

Author Biographies

Charlie Frye, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc

Charlie Frye is the Chief Cartographer at Esri, manages the Cartographic Projects Group on the Content Team, and is the theme lead for earth and environmental content in Living Atlas. He has worked at Esri in the Software Products since 1994.

Dawn J. Wright, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc

Dawn Wright received an Individual Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Physical Geography and Marine Geology from UCSB in 1994. She is Chief Scientist of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) and an affiliated professor of Geography and Oceanography at Oregon State University.

Earl Nordstrand, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc

Senior Researcher, Population and Business Analytics

Carmelle Terborgh, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc

Lead account manager for NGOs.

Jeanne Foust, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc

Global Manager of Standards and Interoperability

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Published

2018-09-06

Issue

Section

Research Papers