LandScan: a global population database for estimating populations at risk

The LandScan Global Population Project produced a world-wide 1998 population database at a 30-by 30-second resolution for estimating ambient populations at risk. Best available census counts were distributed to cells based on probability coefficients which, in turn, were based on road proximity, slope, land cover, and nighttime lights, LandScan 1998 has been completed for the entire world. Verification and validation (V&V) studies were conducted routinely for all regions and more extensively for Israel, Germany, and the southwestern United States. Geographic information systems (GIS) were essential for conflation of diverse input variables, computation of probability coefficients, allocation of population to…