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.自古以来，人类多聚居在可便捷获取淡水的区域。时至今日，全球已有超50%的人口居住在城市地区，淡水可通过长达数十公里的输水管道完成调配输送。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存在何种关联？本研究开展了一项高分辨率全球分析，聚焦当前全球人口距地表淡水（surface freshwater）水体的居住距离情况，旨在深化对不同气候带与行政区域内，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%的人口居住距离超过10公里。但不同行政区域与气候带之间存在显著差异：澳大利亚、亚洲与欧洲的人口居住点距淡水水体的距离最近。尽管干旱地带的人口在绝对距离上距淡水水体最远，但考虑到该区域内淡水水体数量稀缺，相对而言其居住点距淡水水体的距离反而更近。干旱地带的人口分布与气候因素及距淡水水体的距离均呈现统计学意义上的显著关联，而其他气候带的人口分布则与距水距离无统计学显著关联。全球范围内关于发展与气候适应的相关研究，可借助对人口分布与距淡水距离间关联的深化认知获得裨益。