Hypsographic demography: the distribution of human population by altitude.

The global distribution of the human population by elevation is quantified here. As of 1994, an estimated 1.88 x 10(9) people, or 33. 5% of the world's population, lived within 100 vertical meters of sea level, but only 15.6% of all inhabited land lies below 100 m elevation. The median person lived at an elevation of 194 m above sea level. Numbers of people decreased faster than exponentially with increasing elevation. The integrated population density (IPD, the number of people divided by the land area) within 100 vertical meters of sea level was significantly larger than that of any other range of elevations and represented far more people. A significant percentage of the low-elevation population lived at moderate population densities rather than at the highest densities of central large cities. Assessments of coastal hazards that focus only on large cities may substantially underestimate the number of people who could be affected.

[1]  P. Baker.  Human adaptation to high altitude. , 1969, Science.

[2]  D. Gf.  Demography and research with high altitude populations. , 1970 .

[3]  Richard J. Kopec.  Global Climate Change and the Impact of a Maximum Sea Level on Coastal Settlement , 1971 .

[4]  John Harte,et al.  Consider a Spherical Cow: A course in environmental problem solving , 1985 .

[5]  R. Porter.  The eighteenth-century campaign to avoid disease , 1987, Medical History.

[6]  J. Riley.  The Eighteenth-Century Campaign to Avoid Disease , 1987, Palgrave Macmillan UK.

[7]  E. B. Darden,et al.  Galactic cosmic radiation exposure and associated health risks for air carrier crewmembers. , 1989, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[8]  Confronting climate change: Risks, implications and responses , 1992 .

[9]  Irving M. Mintzer,et al.  Confronting climate change : risks, implications and responses , 1992 .

[10]  J Short,et al.  Population data and global environmental change. , 1992 .

[11]  E. Konishi,et al.  Prevalence of antibody to Toxoplasma gondii among inhabitants under different geographical and climatic conditions in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. , 1993, Japanese journal of medical science & biology.

[12]  R. Ashford,et al.  Visceral leishmaniasis in Ethiopia. IV. Prevalence, incidence and relation of infection to disease in an endemic area. , 1994, Annals of tropical medicine and parasitology.

[13]  W. Meyer.  BRINGING HYPSOGRAPHY BACK IN: ALTITUDE AND RESIDENCE IN AMERICAN CITIES , 1994 .

[14]  R. Wall,et al.  Blowfly strike in England and Wales: the relationship between prevalence and farm and management factors , 1994, Medical and veterinary entomology.

[15]  G. King,et al.  Active tectonics and human survival strategies , 1994 .

[16]  H. Kashiwazaki,et al.  Selenium levels and glutathione peroxidase activities in blood in an andean high-altitude population. , 1995, Journal of nutritional science and vitaminology.

[17]  R. Moss,et al.  Climate change 1995 - impacts, adaptations and mitigation of climate change : scientific-technical analyses , 1997 .

[18]  B. Danielson,et al.  Spatially Explicit Population Models: Current Forms and Future Uses , 1995 .

[19]  Joel E. Cohen,et al.  How Many People Can the Earth Support , 1998 .

[20]  M. Cogswell,et al.  The influence of fetal and maternal factors on the distribution of birthweight. , 1995, Seminars in perinatology.

[21]  Association of pulmonary artery size on chest radiograph with residence at elevated altitudes , 1996 .

[22]  L. Rossi,et al.  Environmental and human influence on the ecology of Trichinella spiralis and Trichinella britovi in Western Europe , 1996, Parasitology.

[23]  S. Merler,et al.  Classification tree methods for analysis of mesoscale distribution of Ixodes ricinus (Acari:Ixodidae) in Trentino, Italian Alps. , 1996, Journal of medical entomology.

[24]  F. Chapin,et al.  Biotic Control over the Functioning of Ecosystems , 1997 .

[25]  Andrew P. Dobson,et al.  Hopes for the Future: Restoration Ecology and Conservation Biology , 1997 .

[26]  Dobson Mj.  Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England , 1997 .

[27]  R. Dirzo,et al.  Forests as Human-Dominated Ecosystems , 1997 .

[28]  W. Parton,et al.  Agricultural intensification and ecosystem properties. , 1997, Science.

[29]  Altitude and the risk of bites from mosquitoes infected with malaria and filariasis among the Mianmin people of Papua New Guinea. , 1997, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

[30]  M. Brockerhoff,et al.  World Urbanization Prospects: The 1996 Revision , 1998 .

[31]  Robert Lee.  Contours of death and disease in early modern England , 2000, Medical History.