Officially, about 8.2 billion people live on the planet. However, a new study led by Joasius Lang-Ritter, a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University (Finland), calls this figure into question.
A scientist claims that the real scale of the human population may be significantly higher, especially in rural areas, where traditional censuses often yield inaccurate results.
According to the researcher, the rural population is underestimated by 53–84% in existing global databases. These data, as noted by Lang-Ritter, have been used for scientific and political purposes for decades, but no one has systematically verified their accuracy before.
To assess the accuracy of demographic models, Lang-Ritter's team turned to an unexpected source - data on the resettlement of people due to dam construction. More than 300 such projects were analyzed in 35 countries. In these cases, the number of resettled individuals is recorded with utmost precision, as companies are required to compensate each resident for their losses.
The scientists compared this data with satellite images and concluded that the actual number of residents in rural areas is significantly higher than official estimates.
The authors believe that the discrepancies are related to the lack of resources in individual countries to conduct detailed censuses and the inaccessibility of remote areas. But the consequences could be serious - from misallocation of government subsidies and infrastructure investments to distorted forecasts on climate change and food security.
However, not all experts agree with the conclusions. Demographer Stuart Gitelman-Basten from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology stated that such a large discrepancy seems unlikely. "If we are indeed underestimating the population by billions, it would be a sensation contradicting decades of demographic data," he noted in a comment to New Scientist.
The study has already sparked lively discussions in the scientific community. For if the Finnish scientists' assumptions are confirmed, humanity will be even more numerous - and its impact on the planet may be underestimated far more than we are used to thinking.
