Chalk up another potential lowlight for "the science"...
While global population estimates sit around 8.2 billion, lead author Josias Láng-Ritter of Aalto University argues rural populations may be significantly undercounted, according to Yahoo News and Popular Mechanics.
“We were surprised to find that the actual population living in rural areas is much higher than the global population data indicates—depending on the dataset, rural populations have been underestimated by between 53 percent to 84 percent over the period studied," he said in a press statement.
“The results are remarkable, as these datasets have been used in thousands of studies and extensively support decision-making, yet their accuracy has not been systematically evaluated.”
“When dams are built, large areas are flooded and people need to be relocated,” he continued.
“The relocated population is usually counted precisely because dam companies pay compensation to those affected. Unlike global population datasets, such local impact statements provide comprehensive, on-the-ground population counts that are not skewed by administrative boundaries. We then combined these with spatial information from satellite imagery.”
The article states that to test global population estimates, Láng-Ritter turned to his background in water management, analyzing data from 300 rural dam projects across 35 countries between 1975 and 2010. These figures offered a reliable benchmark to compare against estimates from groups like WorldPop, GRUMP, LandScan, and others included in the study.
The gap in population data likely comes from limited resources and the challenge of reaching remote rural areas, leading to undercounts that can affect how resources are distributed.
Still, not everyone is sold. Stuart Gietel-Basten of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology told New Scientist that while better rural data is welcome, the idea Earth holds billions more people is “extremely unlikely,” calling it a claim that defies decades of research.
Missing a few thousand is expected—but millions or billions would require far more proof to rewrite what we know about global population.
