Nature Communications (Aug 2016)

Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation

  • Oscar Venter,
  • Eric W. Sanderson,
  • Ainhoa Magrach,
  • James R. Allan,
  • Jutta Beher,
  • Kendall R. Jones,
  • Hugh P. Possingham,
  • William F. Laurance,
  • Peter Wood,
  • Balázs M. Fekete,
  • Marc A. Levy,
  • James E. M. Watson

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12558
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Habitat loss and urbanization are primary components of human impact on the environment. Here, Venter et al.use global data on infrastructure, agriculture, and urbanization to show that the human footprint is growing slower than the human population, but footprints are increasing in biodiverse regions.