File:land-usage1.png

Summary

Black is farm land. Magenta is built-up land (housing etc) (which is hard to see except in China & India). The rest could perhaps be considered "untouched" natural land.

Methodology

Image generator code:

pop  << data/population.data-float64-8640x4320 # population counts
crop << data/cropland.data-float32-4320x2160   # cropland fraction of land
past << data/pasture.data-float32-4320x2160    # pasture fraction of land
earth<< data/blue-marble-posterized.png        # base layer

pop @@ quantity_to_density
pop :: earth.r
pop -= 400 # hard threshold (people per km^2) for land to be marked as 'built-up'
pop @@ 01
crop >= 0
crop @@ neg
crop :: earth.r
past >= 0
past @@ neg
past :: earth.r

earth.r *= crop
earth.r *= past
earth.r += pop
earth.r @@ 01
earth.g *= crop
earth.g *= past
earth.g -= pop
earth.g @@ 01
earth.b *= crop
earth.b *= past
earth.b += pop
earth.b @@ 01
earth >> data/land-usage1.png

Note: we are using population density as a best guess for determining which land is built-up. In theory that might not be perfectly accurate, but in practice, the end result is matches well enough with totals from other data sources.

See also

• File:land-crop1.png - crop land
• File:land-pasture1.png - pasture
• File:land-builtup1.png - built-up land
• File:land-wild1.png - untouched lands