How the Anthromes Guide was Created
The Guide to Anthromes offers maps, images and global data to facilitate curious learning about nature and landscapes across the planet through three exploratory avenues – anthromes, biomes, and world regions . The content presented in the guide is based on the 2021 publication “People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years“. More on this analysis is <here>.
Each page highlights spatial, temporal, and statistical trends using a map, timeline, example image(s), text, and estimates of the global percent of land, human population, protected land area, key biodiversity area, food calorie production, and carbon in aboveground vegetation. Images for the Guide were contributed personally by the authors of the Guide and through the openly available resources found on Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, and other images used with permission.
Sources
Anthromes & Land Areas
Ellis, E. C., N. Gauthier, K. K. Goldewijk, R. B. Bird, N. Boivin, S. Díaz, D. Q. Fuller, J. L. Gill, J. O. Kaplan, N. Kingston, H. Locke, C. N. H. McMichael, D. Ranco, T. C. Rick, M. R. Shaw, L. Stephens, J.-C. Svenning, and J. E. M. Watson. 2021. People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(17):e2023483118. [Download PDF]
Biomes
Ramankutty, N. and Foley, J. A. 1999. Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 13(4):997-1027.
Populations & Intensive Land Use
Klein Goldewijk, K., Beusen, A., Doelman, J., and Stehfest, E. 2011. Anthropogenic land-use estimates for the Holocene; HYDE 3.2, Earth System Science Data 9:927-953.
Protected Areas
UNEP-WCMC, The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) statistics (UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK, 2019). As assessed in Locke et al. 2019. Three global conditions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use: An implementation framework. National Science Review 6:1080–1082.
Key Biodiversity Areas
BirdLife International, Conservation International, Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) digital boundaries, September 2018. Deposited 9 March 2019. As assessed in Locke et al. 2019. Three global conditions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use: An implementation framework. National Science Review 6:1080–1082.
Food Calories Produced
Cassidy, E.S., West, P.C., Gerber, J.S. and Foley, J.A. 2013. Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare. Environmental Research Letters 8(3):034015. As assessed in Locke et al. 2019. Three global conditions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use: An implementation framework. National Science Review 6:1080–1082.
Aboveground Vegetation Carbon
Spawn, S.A., Sullivan, C.C., Lark, T.J. and Gibbs, H.K. 2020. Harmonized global maps of above and belowground biomass carbon density in the year 2010. Scientific Data, 7(1):112. Available at https://daac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/dsviewer.pl?ds_id=1763.
Source Code to reproduce these analyses and visualizations is available as an R research compendium on the Harvard Dataverse here: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/6FWPZ9. The entire anthrome analysis can be reproduced from the source code using publicly available data, but intermediate data products such as the anthrome classification, maps, and summary statistics are available on the Harvard Dataverse here: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/E3H3AK. Supplemental data assessed using the same Discrete Global Grid (DGG) format as anthromes for the Three Global Conditions analysis are available at the Harvard Dataverse here: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EAVBIP.
Authors
Caroline Vickery contributed to designing the guide, computing global statistics and timelines, sharing and selecting images, producing pages, and did most of the heavy lifting for the guide.
John Quinn helped lead the guide project, developed the code and analytics for the guide, produced timelines and other content, and helped produce the pages.
Pete Land of Tamarack Media Collective developed the website design.
Erle Ellis developed the anthromes framework, made the maps, and helped lead the project.