The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 35 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Hypsographic demography: The distribution of human population by altitude
Open accessAbstract
The global distribution of the human population by elevation is quantified here. As of 1994, an estimated 1.88 × 10 9 people, or 33.5% of the world’s population, lived within 100 vertical meters of sea level, but only 15.6% of all inhabited land lies below 100 m elevation. The median person lived at an elevation of 194 m above sea level. Numbers of people decreased faster than exponentially with increasing elevation. The integrated population density (IPD, the number of people divided by the land area) within 100 vertical meters of sea level was significantly larger than that of any other range of elevations and represented far more people. A significant percentage of the low-elevation population lived at moderate population densities rather than at the highest densities of central large cities. Assessments of coastal hazards that focus only on large cities may substantially underestimate the number of people who could be affected.
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“Research on avian flight has, for anthropogenic reasons deriving from contemporary altitudinal distribution of modern humans (Cohen and Small, 1998), typically been conducted at or near sea-level conditions.”
From The physiology and biomechanics of avian flight at high altitude (2006) · cites this paper as Cohen and Small, 1998
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Cites
Agricultural Intensification and Ecosystem Properties
Matson, P. A., Parton, W. J., Power, A. G., & Swift, M. J. (1997) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.277.5325.504 · Cited by 3,160
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
A global analysis of human settlement in coastal zones
Small, C., & Nicholls, R. J. (2003) · ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) · Cited by 1,527
Self-citationA review of the relationships between human population density and biodiversity
Luck, G. (2007) · Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1469-185x.2007.00028.x · Cited by 498
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Leyk, S., Gaughan, A. E., Adamo, S. B., de Sherbinin, A., Balk, D. L., Freire, S., Rose, A., Stevens, F. R., Blankespoor, B. A., Frye, C., et al. (2019) · Earth system science data · doi:10.5194/essd-11-1385-2019 · Cited by 458
Analysis and trends of the world's coastal cities and agglomerations
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Metadata
- Authors
- Cohen, J. E., & Small, C.
- Affiliations
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 1998-11-24
- Volume
- 95
- Issue
- 24
- Pages
- 14009-14014
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC24316
- OpenAlex
- W1977481540
- Cited by
- 290
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 1.37
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Impact of Light on Environment and Health
- Keywords
- human population distribution, altitude, hypsography, population density, coastal hazards, sea level rise, urban population
- MeSH terms
- Altitude, Demography, Geography, Humans, Population Density
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