Human Appropriation of Net Primary Productivity (HANPP) Data Sets

The Human Appropriation of Net Primary Productivity (HANPP) Data Sets are derived from an analysis of global patterns in human consumption of net primary productivity (NPP) that was conducted by a team of researchers from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland, the World Wildlife Fund, Stanford University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Bowie State University. NPP (the net amount of solar energy converted to plant organic matter through photosynthesis) can be measured in units of elemental carbon and represents the primary food energy source for the world's ecosystems. HANPP, through the consumption of food, paper, wood, and fiber, alters the composition of the atmosphere, levels of biodiversity, energy flows within food webs, and the provision of important ecosystem services. The data sets include: (1) a satellite-derived quarter-degree NPP grid; (2) the intermediate model of human appropriation of NPP; (3) HANPP as a percent of NPP; and (4) tabular data by country on total estimated consumption of NPP in the form of food, paper, wood, and fiber. A detailed description of the methods utilized to produce the data, as well as research results, are described in: Imhoff, Marc L., Lahouari Bounoua, Taylor Ricketts, Colby Loucks, Robert Harriss, and William T. Lawrence. 2004. Global patterns in human consumption of net primary production. Nature, 429, 24 June 2004: 870-873 and Imhoff, Marc L., and Lahouari Bounoua. 2006. Exploring global patterns of net primary production carbon supply and demand using satellite observations and statistical data. Journal of Geophysical Research, 111, D22S12, doi:10.1029/2006JD007377.