Geographic’s map drawn from UW-Madison work

The September 2002 issue of National Geographic features a map, “A World Transformed,”depicting human impact on the Earth.

The full-color, pull-out map supplement was drawn with data provided by UW–Madison’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment and researchers Jonathan Foley and Navin Ramankutty, with design work by Billiana Leff.

The map depicts the state of the planet in 2002, showing how human activities such as farming and urbanization have altered the surface of the Earth. The data gathered by Ramankutty and Foley was drawn from historical records and satellite imagery and shows how humans have “planted, grazed, paved or built upon roughly 40 percent of the Earth’s terrestrial surface.” In short, according to the map’s legend, no place on Earth is untouched by human activity.

The map was produced by National Geographic cartographers as part of the magazine’s coverage of the state of the planet in the context of the ongoing Earth Summit in Johannesburg.