(7-A) -GLOBAL AND NATIONAL DATA 

(7-B) -PARKLANDS AND PROTECTED AREAS 

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Urban or built-up areas worldwide total 4.745 million km² ((se00W1), p. 24).

Estimating rates of conversions to urban land first requires a value for the global inventory of urbanized land. Atlay, Ketner and Duvigneaud (se79A1), (se90W1) estimated 2.0 million km². This can be extrapolated to 1995 at a rate of 2.7%/ year based on 1.7%/ year population growth, plus 1%/ year economic growth/ capita (se95B2). This gives a 1995 global urban land inventory of 3.1 million km². More recent satellite data ((se00W1) Table FG.5) gives a global urban-lands inventory of 4.745 million km². (See above.) Urban "sprawl" is one likely explanation for the difference between these two values.

• The world's 25,000 golf courses cover 33,000 km² (se94P2). (la)
• By 2000, mining will have directly disturbed (urbanized) 240,000 km² of the Earth's surface (Johnnie N. Moore, Samuel N. Luoma, Environmental Science and Technology, 24 (1990) pp. 1278-85). (la)
• Airports in the US occupied 7126 km² of land in 1968 and 10,121 km² today (se86U1).
• Divided highways consume 41 acres/ mile. Such highways increased from 25,000 to 50,000 miles during 1964-77 (se86U1). (4150 km² in 1964 and 8300 km² in 1977)
• 40,500 US km² have been covered by impounded water (se56G2). (la) Comments: Obsolete data. The current figure is certainly much larger.

In the mid-1970s, 162,000 km² of US land had been converted to urban use. About half of this land was formerly in cropland (se76P2). Comments: Croplands tend to be fairly level and reasonably humid. Thus they are favored for urbanization.

In the mid-1970s roads covered 130,000 km² in the US (se76P2). (la) Comments: This figure seems somewhat inconsistent with the figure of 162,000 km² of total urbanized land in the U.S.

In the late 1970s there were 364,000 km² of urban- and built-up lands in the US (se79D1). (la)

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(7-B) - PARKLANDS AND PROTECTED AREAS
[1] Global, [2] Australia and Oceania, [3] U.S.

The world in 1990 had 6.515 million km² of nationally protected areas (df92R3). (Most are presumably forested.) The figure in Environment 32(1) (1990) is 4.82 million km² including 700,000 km² of Greenland National Park. (la)

The area of world's forests in formally protected areas is estimated to be 4.79 million km², or 12.4% of total forest area (df01F1). (la)

Worldwide, about 10% of the world's forests are protected. Regional results were that North and Central America had 17% of their forests under protection; South America, 16%; Africa, 11%; Oceania, 10%; Asia, 9%; and Europe (including the Russian Federation) 5% (df01F1). (la)

2,900,000 km² of forest are protected from logging, globally, but many are threatened by illegal exploitation (df02U1). (la) Comments: Some protected areas are not forested, so the total protected area is well above 2.9 million km² .

[2] Parklands - Australia and Oceania

25% of Queensland's rainforest (in Australia) is protected in national parks and preserves (df88D1). (la)

The Great Barrier Reefs off Australia are among the best off in the world due to the protective status of a 350,000-km² park (fi93W2). Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (established in 1975) covers nearly 238,000 km² (fi96H1). (la)

80,000 km² of US productive timberland is currently used for parks, wilderness areas and other purposes not compatible with harvesting trees for timber (df76S1). (la)

In the 11 Western states of the US, the National Park Service currently administers 23 National Parks, 47 National Monuments, 11 National Recreation Areas, and 17 National Memorials, Historic Sites, Historic Parks, Battlefield Parks, Seashores and such. These 98 NPS units cover 17 million acres (68,800 km²), or 2.3% of the West. (la)