Global Human settlements Mapping

The clear boundary between urban and rural areas is gradually disappearing, urban and rural areas are two poles of a gradient with many continuous human settlements in between, which is a concept known as the rural-urban continuum. Little is known about the distribution and change trajectories of the various types in the rural-urban continuum across the globe. Therefore, using global land cover data (FROM-GLC Plus) and global population data (Worldpop) based on method of decision-making tree, this study proposed a method and classification system for global rural-urban continuum mapping and produced the mapping results on a global scale in Google Earth Engine platform.