Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1

This paper describes a tool for long-term global change studies; it is an update of the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE) with estimates of some of the underlying demographic driving factors of global change. We estimate total and urban/rural population numbers, densities and fractions (including built-up area) for the Holocene, roughly the period 10 000 BC to AD 2000 with a spatial resolution of 5 min longitude/latitude. With a total global population increase from 2 to 6145 million people over that time span, resulting in a global population density increase of < 0.1 cap/km 2 to almost 46 cap/km 2 and a urban built-up area evolving from almost zero to 0.5 million km 2 (still only <0.5%…