IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v10y2019i1d10.1038_s41467-019-08366-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The evolution of human population distance to water in the USA from 1790 to 2010

Author

Listed:
  • Yu Fang

    (University of Florida
    Tsinghua University)

  • James W. Jawitz

    (University of Florida)

Abstract

Human societies evolved alongside rivers, but how has the relationship between human settlement locations and water resources evolved over time? We conducted a dynamic analysis in the conterminous US to assess the coevolution of humans and water resources from 1790 to 2010. Here we show that humans moved closer to major rivers in pre-industrial periods but have moved farther from major rivers after 1870, demonstrating the dynamics of human reliance on rivers for trade and transport. We show that humans were preferentially attracted to areas overlying major aquifers since industrialization due to the emergent accessibility of groundwater in the 20th century. Regional heterogeneity resulted in diverse trajectories of settlement proximity to major rivers, with the attractiveness of rivers increasing in arid regions and decreasing in humid areas. Our results reveal a historical coevolution of human-water systems, which could inform water management and contribute to societal adaptation to future climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu Fang & James W. Jawitz, 2019. "The evolution of human population distance to water in the USA from 1790 to 2010," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-08366-z
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08366-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08366-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-019-08366-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sajad Jamshidi & Maryam Baniasad & Dev Niyogi, 2020. "Global to USA County Scale Analysis of Weather, Urban Density, Mobility, Homestay, and Mask Use on COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-17, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-08366-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.