Fifteen percent of global population lives within a few miles of a coast—and the number is growing rapidly

Mississippi State University

 

NICE FULL WINDSOR KNOT TIE

image: 

Arthur Cosby

view more 

Credit: Grace Cockrell

STARKVILLE, Miss.—In 2023, the world’s population surpassed 8 billion. Mississippi State Social Science Research Center faculty are utilizing novel technology from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to estimate the growth and settlement of those billions along the Earth’s coast.

In a new article recently published in Scientific Reports-Nature, MSU SSRC Professor Emeritus Arthur G. Cosby and a team of researchers across the U.S. use data from ORNL’s Global LandScan Project to develop high-resolution estimates of coastal populations. The article “Accelerating Growth of Human Coastal Populations at the Global and Continent Levels: 2000–2018” is available at www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-73287-x.

MSU’s Cosby and co-author Viswadeep Lebakula, ORNL research scientist in Human Geography, also recently published an article about their findings in The Conversation, available at https://theconversation.com/15-of-global-population-lives-within-a-few-miles-of-a-coast-and-the-number-is-growing-rapidly-240672.

The team developed new data science techniques for estimating at specific intervals, finding growth concentrated in coastal areas worldwide. For example, the team found that “1.72 billion people were within 50 km of shoreline in 2000.” About two decades later, the coastal population had increased to 2.2 billion, an increase of about 26%. The closer to Earth’s coastline, the more condensed the population, with the most significant increases occurring nearest the shoreline.

“Our estimation techniques are quite involved. We developed a technique of estimating the population in 5 km bands along the coast of the entire globe. For example, we found that 2.2 billion individuals were within 10 km of the shoreline. This means that something like 14% of the world’s population is living in the small band along the shore that composes only 4% of the world’s inhabitable land,” Cosby said.

He explained that as populations of coastal areas expand faster than inland areas, they face unique benefits and risks, including sea-level rise, soil erosion and exposure to extreme weather events. At the same time, coastal regions often are wealthy places with opportunities that drive population growth.

“We estimated that since the turn of the century in 2000, there are about a half billion new inhabitants within 50 km of the shoreline. Just imagine how much additional human waste is being concentrated in a small geographic area. This one factor alone creates huge problems of waste management and treatment, infrastructure development, and increased human exposure to pathogens. Clearly, this is a growing public health issue that is occurring on a global scale. It is doubtful that many of the poorer countries are prepared for this threat,” Cosby said.

Cosby led this study alongside Viswadeep Lebakula, a lead scientist on the LandScan Global Project ORNL; Ciarra Smith, Mississippi State University; David Wanik, University of Connecticut; Karissa Bergene, George Mason University; Amy Rose, ORNL; David Swanson, University of California Riverside; and David Bloom, Havard University.

Scientific Reports is the fifth most cited journal in the world and contains research from all areas of the natural sciences, psychology, medicine and engineering.

MSU’s Social Science Research Center is online at www.ssrc.msstate.edu.

Mississippi State University is taking care of what matters. Learn more at www.msstate.edu.

---

Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-73287-x 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Accelerating growth of human coastal populations at the global and continent levels: 2000–2018