Data from: How close do we live to water? a global analysis of population distance to freshwater bodies

Traditionally, people have inhabited places with ready access to fresh water. Today, over 50% of the global population lives in urban areas, and water can be directed via tens of kilometres of pipelines. Still, however, a large part of the world's population is directly dependent on access to natural freshwater sources. So how are inhabited places related to the location of freshwater bodies today? We present a high-resolution global analysis of how close present-day populations live to surface freshwater. We aim to increase the understanding of the relationship between inhabited places, distance to surface freshwater bodies, and climatic characteristics in different climate zones and administrative regions. Our results show that over 50% of the world's population lives closer than 3 km to a surface freshwater body, and only 10% of the population lives further than 10 km away. There are, however, remarkable differences between administrative regions and climatic zones. Populations in Australia, Asia, and Europe live closest to water. Although populations in arid zones live furthest away from freshwater bodies in absolute terms, relatively speaking they live closest to water considering the limited number of freshwater bodies in those areas. Population distributions in arid zones show statistically significant relationships with a combination of climatic factors and distance to water, whilst in other zones there is no statistically significant relationship with distance to water. Global studies on development and climate adaptation can benefit from an improved understanding of these relationships between human populations and the distance to fresh water.

长久以来，人类均聚居在可便捷获取淡水的区域。如今，全球超过50%的人口居住在城市区域，淡水可通过数十公里的输水管道完成输送。尽管如此，全球仍有大量人口直接依赖天然淡水水源获取用水。那么当下，人类聚居地与淡水水体的空间分布之间存在何种关联？本研究开展了一项高分辨率的全球尺度分析，旨在探究当前全球人口距地表淡水水体的空间距离分布情况。本研究旨在深化对不同气候区、不同行政区划内，人类聚居地、距地表淡水水体的距离与气候特征三者间关联的认知。研究结果显示，全球超过50%的人口居住在距地表淡水水体3公里以内的区域，仅10%的人口居住在距其10公里以外的地带。但不同行政区划与气候区间存在显著差异。澳大利亚、亚洲及欧洲的人口聚居地距淡水水体的距离最近。尽管干旱地区的人口在绝对距离上离淡水水体最远，但考虑到该区域内淡水水体总量稀缺，相对而言其聚居地距淡水水体的距离反而更近。干旱地区的人口分布与气候因子及距水距离的组合呈现出统计学意义上的显著关联，而其他气候区的人口分布则与距水距离无统计学显著关联。全球范围内开展的发展与气候适应相关研究，可借助对人口分布与距淡水距离间关联的深化认知获得助力。