The Living Land

This is the second chapter in Living in the Age of Humans, a series of stories examining the planet-wide impacts of our species. You can  learn more about the series  or go back and read the first chapter  here .

Our cities, roads, and other connecting networks are dense enough to trace the contours of the continents themselves. So it's worth asking: What, exactly, are we doing with the vast amount of land we now inhabit? How much more land will we use in the future? And what implications does this land use have for Planet Earth?

For many of us, urban areas are the first thing that comes to mind when we think of human-modified land. We picture sprawling suburbs, expansive parking lots, and looming skylines. It makes sense—these are certainly the areas that least resemble the natural world they replaced. But, as it turns out, these mental images aren't very representative of our overall land use.

This breakdown leaves us with two key takeaways. First, in terms of all the habitable land that is available on the planet (in other words, not counting the bare areas), nearly two-thirds is thought to have been modified by humans to varying degrees.

Second, and perhaps more surprisingly, urban areas represent a tiny fraction of humanity’s overall land use. Instead, it is agriculture that overwhelmingly impacts large swaths of the planet. Between crops and grazing livestock, as much as half of Earth’s habitable land may have been affected by our efforts to feed ourselves. 

Our growing capacity to observe the Earth reveals how much of the world’s usable land has been modified by agriculture. Feeding a population of over seven billion, some of whom still go hungry, is a tremendous undertaking—one with equally tremendous impacts on the natural world.

In later chapters of this series, we’ll look more closely at some of the outcomes of these human endeavors, including biodiversity loss, habitat degradation, and climate change. For now, though, the goal is to establish a shared understanding of what land use looks like around the world, and how this has changed over time.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into our predominant use of land—agriculture—starting with croplands.

Over the past half-century, the global production of the big four crops has skyrocketed. The rise of corn has been especially dramatic—nearly four times as many million tons were produced in 2016 than in 1970.

The increase in production is good news for a growing population. But an increasing percentage of corn and soybeans is used for biofuel, and much of it is processed into animal feed—an inefficient use of the calories these plants produce. Moreover, depending so heavily on a handful of crops puts us at risk from pests and disease that could impact future yields.

Different regions lend themselves to the production of each of these four crops.

Croplands don’t provide a full account of land used for agriculture across the world. Pasture and grazing land—those spaces used for livestock—cover vast, additional stretches of the Earth's surface.

Like crops, the amount of livestock being raised has been rising rapidly since 1970. This increase can largely be attributed to an increase in population and a concurrent increase in wealth. Around the world, more and more households are able to afford meat as a primary protein source in their diet.

Looking at cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats, this growing demand for meat is clearly apparent. Factor in the rearing of chickens, however, and the narrative becomes all the more dramatic—chicken production has roughly quadrupled from 1970 levels.

Aerial views are an effective way to gain an appreciation for the space allocated to livestock, whether the animals live out in the open, in pens, or behind closed doors. 

As the world’s population continues to rise, and more people are able to regularly include meat in their diet, taking time to reflect on how we use Earth’s limited land becomes more and more important.

Experts estimate that by 2050, our global population will approach 10 billion—that’s nearly 3 billion more people than exist today. Global wealth is also expected to continue climbing. Together, these two forces have considerable implications for how we approach the problem of feeding ourselves, and sustainably managing what space remains on the planet.

Proposed solutions cover a wide range of actions, from reducing the amount of meat in our diets to considering alternative protein sources (insects for dinner, anyone?), and diversifying the types of crops grown around the world to increase resiliency. In reality, a combination of solutions will likely be necessary to ensure nutritional needs can be met for all of humanity in the long term. 

But ensuring humans have enough space to live and food to eat is not the only concern of our species. There are other consequences of our use of Earth’s land, including the effects we’re having on our planet's natural systems—and its climate.

What do those effects look like? That’s a question we’ll begin to explore further in the next chapter of Living in the Age of Humans.

The Living Land is the second chapter in  Living in the Age of Humans , a series from Esri's StoryMaps team examining the planet-wide impacts of human activities. You can read the third chapter  here .

To fully appreciate the scope of the impacts described above, we suggest you spend some time interacting with the data we've mapped. To that end, we've created a companion atlas of interactive maps.