Millennium Assessment systems with the lowest net primary productivity and lowest GDP tended to have the highest population growth rates between 1990 and 2000. Urban, inland water, and marine systems are not included due to the somewhat arbitrary nature of determining net primary productivity of the system (urban) or population growth and GDP (freshwater and marine) for them.

Today, the great pressure on water resources is rising human populations, particularly growing concentrations in urban areas. This diagram shows the impact of expected population growth on water usage by 2025, based on the UN mid-range population projection. It uses the current rate of water use per person without taking into account possible increases in water use due to economic growth or improvements in water use efficiency. The regions most v...

Illustration in a set of graphics prepared for a pilot assessment report on the Black Sea drainage basin, for the UNEP Global Impact on Waters Assessment (GIWA). All data and information were prepared in close collaboration with the GIWA Black Sea team and the GIWA secretariat. The graphics were never not used in this form in the final report on the Black Sea, published in 2005.

Population growth and technology: operating together these two factors account for the major causes of coral reef decline - excessive domestic and agricultural waste pouring into ocean waters, poor land-use practices that increase sedimentation of rivers and then of reefs, and over-exploitation of reef resources, often in combination with practices such as harvesting with dynamite and poison, all degrade reefs.

With growing population and infrastructures the world’s exposure to natural hazards is inevitably increasing. This is particularly true as the strongest population growth is located in coastal areas (with greater exposure to floods, cyclones and tidal waves). To make matters worse any land remaining available for urban growth is generally risk-prone, for instance flood plains or steep slopes subject to landslides. The statistics in this graphic r...

Shows the population growth rate of both rural and urban areas from around the world from 1960 and predicting total for 2025 using World Bank projections. The level of people living in cities are constantly increasing, according to the trends.

The population has rapidly increased in Africa, to reach approximately 905 million inhabitants by 2005. The rate of the annual growth is levelling out after seeing a peak around 1990. Out of the sub-regions, the population is fairly evenly distributed, as indicated in the pie-chart, with Central Africa trailing behind the others, and the Western Indian Ocean islands with the smallest share out of the total population.

Apart from two large urban areas – Baku-Sumgait and Makhachkala-Kaspiisk – and the Iranian coast on the southern shore, a very densely populated coastal strip where one agglomeration leads into the next, most of the population living on the shores of the Caspian is rural, with strong religious and family traditions actively maintained.

Several countries and provinces – Iran, Daghestan, Turkmenistan and parts of Azerbaijan – still enjoy very high population growth rates (in excess of 10 per 1,000). Many of the population tends to gravitate towards the Caspian Sea.

With growing population and infrastructures the world’s exposure to natural hazards is inevitably increasing. This is particularly true as the strongest population growth is located in coastal areas (with greater exposure to floods, cyclones and tidal waves). To make matters worse any land remaining available for urban growth is generally risk-prone, for instance flood plains or steep slopes subject to landslides. The statistics in the graph opp...

With growing population and infrastructures the world’s exposure to natural hazards is inevitably increasing. This is particularly true as the strongest population growth is located in coastal areas (with greater exposure to floods, cyclones and tidal waves). To make matters worse any land remaining available for urban growth is generally risk-prone, for instance flood plains or steep slopes subject to landslides. The statistics in this graphic r...

The predictive models for population growth and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Aral Sea region shows there maybe some stabilization between the two and possibly some positive implications for the region. In Russian.

The predictive models for population growth and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Aral Sea region shows there maybe some stabilization between the two and possibly some positive implications for the region.

Central Asia is a disaster-prone area, exposed to various natural hazards such as floods, droughts, avalanches, rockslide and earthquakes. It is also vulnerable to man-made disasters related to industrial activity and the radioactive and chemical dumps inherited from the Soviet period. Several factors - population density in disaster-prone areas, high overall population growth, poverty, land and water use, failure to comply with building codes an...

Some factors (such as global population growth) will begin to decline in importance and others (distribution of people, climate change, and changes to nutrient cycles) will gain more importance in the near future.

Each day 200,000 more people are added to the world food demand. The world’s human population has increased near fourfold in the past 100 years (UN population Division, 2007); it is projected to increase from 6.7 billion (2006) to 9.2 billion by 2050, as shown in Figure 4 (UN Population Division, 2007). It took only 12 years for the last billion to be added, a net increase of nearly 230,000 new people each day, who will need housing, food a...

Water is essential not only to survival but is also equally or even more important than nutrients in food production. Agriculture accounts for nearly 70% of the water consumption, with some estimates as high as 85% (Hanasaki et al., 2008a,b). Water scarcity will affect over 1.8 billion people by 2025 (WHO, 2007). This could have major impacts on health, particularly in rural areas, and thus also major impacts on farmer productivity. Althoug...

According to the latest UN estimates, almost all of the world’s population growth between 2000 and 2030 will be concentrated in urban areas in developing countries (Figure 32). By 2030, almost 60% of the people in developing countries will live in cities (FAO, 2003). If present trends continue, urban population will equal rural population by around 2017.

Peacefully resolving the overriding political, economic and social concerns of our time requires a multifaceted approach, including mechanisms to address the links between the natural environment and human security. UNDP, UNEP, OSCE and NATO have joined forces in the Environment and Security (ENVSEC) Initiative to offer countries their combined pool of expertise and resources towards that aim. ENVSEC assessment of environment and security linkag...

Peacefully resolving the overriding political, economic and social concerns of our time requires a multifaceted approach, including mechanisms to address the links between the natural environment and human security. UNDP, UNEP, OSCE and NATO have joined forces in the Environment and Security (ENVSEC) Initiative to offer countries their combined pool of expertise and resources towards that aim. ENVSEC assessment of environment and security linkag...