8.2 billion inhabitants on Earth? According to a researcher, the calculation error is huge

Josias Láng-Ritter, a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University in Finland, after studying 300 rural dam projects in no less than 35 countries, concluded that the calculation doesn't account for people living in rural areas. 

In his study published in the journal Nature Communications, Josias Láng-Ritter notes that the difference between estimates and reality could be enormous. “The actual population living in rural areas is much larger than world population data indicate.” Furthermore, the researcher highlights that rural populations were underestimated by 53% to 84% during the study period, which extends from 1975 to 2010, reports the media outlet Demotivateur. 

A reliable calculation system

Drawing on his own experience in water resource management on Earth, Josias Láng-Ritter collected several types of demographic data, all from rural dam projects, and compared them with other figures put forward by other organisations (these were also analysed as part of the study). According to him, this is a reliable system for evaluating the accuracy of demographic information; dam construction being the origin of local population displacements. Movements that are recorded with precision “because dam companies pay compensation to the people affected”. And to add: “Unlike global demographic data, these local impact studies provide exhaustive population counts on the ground, which aren't skewed by administrative borders. We then combined them with spatial information from satellite images.”

Biased data

According to the researcher, the lack of resources and the difficulties in reaching these rural areas are the root of the counting problem. And as Demotivateur indicates, when the rural population is poorly represented, it becomes complex to allocate resources correctly.

The study, which is based on a period from 1975 to 2010, reveals that data from 2010 were less biased, still missing between a third (32%) and three quarters (77%) of the rural population. According to researchers, there are strong probabilities that the latest data, although more accurate, still do not account for part of the world population.

(MH with Raphaël Liset - Source: Demotivateur - Illustration: ©Unsplash)