Country-level aggregates estimate total, urban, and rural populations and land area within six buffer distances from nuclear power plants. Estimates were produced by NASA's ESDIS using global plant location data and population grids for 1990, 2000, and 2010. The analysis applied buffer zones of 30km, 75km, 150km, 300km, 600km, and 1200km to a global dataset.
Use Cases
- Analyze trends in population exposure within the 30km and 75km buffer zones over the 1990-2010 period.
- Compare urban versus rural population counts within the 150km buffer zone across different countries.
- Model the relationship between estimated land area and population density within the 300km and 600km proximity zones.
- Assess the scale of populations potentially affected at the 1200km buffer distance for continental-scale risk studies.
Strengths
- Provides estimates for three distinct time points (1990, 2000, 2010) enabling temporal analysis.
- Uses six standardized buffer distances (30km to 1200km) for consistent proximity measurement.
- Based on global data sources with 1 km resolution for population and land area grids.
Limitations
- Data is temporally stale, with the last estimates from 2010.
- Aggregated at the country level, limiting sub-national or plant-specific analysis.
- Population estimates are modeled from grid data, not direct census counts.
Provenance
- Source
- NASA Earthdata (ESDIS), utilizing Global Population Count Grid Time Series and GRUMPv1 data.
- Collection Method
- Created by applying distance buffers to global nuclear power plant point locations and intersecting with population and land area grids.
- Time Range
- 1990, 2000, 2010
- Freshness
- 2010-01-01
- Geography
- Global, aggregated by country.