TABLE 2.

Comparison of the methods used in creating the four global human influence datasets and their outputs

	Anthromes	Global Human Modification	Human Footprint	Low Impact Areas
Resolution	~5 km	1 km	1 km	1 km
Data year	2015	2016	2009	2015
Type	Categorical	Continuous	Ordinal	Categorical
Scaling	6 groups; 19 classes	0–1 (low to high)	0–50 (low to high)	3 classes
Definition	Human biomes—‘the globally significant ecological patterns created by sustained interactions between humans and ecosystems’	Ecological condition of lands based on the spatial extent and intensity of human activities	Cumulative human pressure on the environment	Landscapes with low human densities and impacts, and not primarily managed for human needs
Primary stressor datasets	6 (human population density, built‐up area, cropland, rice area, irrigated area, pasture)	13 (human population density, built‐up area, cropland, livestock, major roads, minor roads, two tracks, railroads, mines, oil wells, wind turbines, power lines, night‐time lights)	8 (human population density, built‐up area, cropland, pasture, major roads, railroads, navigable rivers, night‐time lights)	7 (human population density, built‐up area, cropland, livestock, forest cover change, roads [in very low impact class], night‐time lights)
Calculation of spatial extent	Classifications based on proportion of total area experiencing the stressor	Determined the proportion modified by each stressor per 1 km2 area (values ranged from 0 to 1)	Treated each stressor layer as present or absent	Treated each stressor layer as present or absent
Indirect effects due to human access	N/A	N/A	Applied a distance decay effect of for roads, navigable waterways and coastlines	N/A
Stressor weighting	N/A	Spatial extent × intensity value, continuous from 0 to 1	Assigned pressure scores from 0 to 10	Equal
Cumulative score	N/A	Applied fuzzy sum algorithm	Summation of cell values	N/A