Abstract
Human societies evolved alongside rivers, but how has the relationship between human settlement locations and water resources evolved over time? We conducted a dynamic analysis in the conterminous US to assess the coevolution of humans and water resources from 1790 to 2010. Here we show that humans moved closer to major rivers in pre-industrial periods but have moved farther from major rivers after 1870, demonstrating the dynamics of human reliance on rivers for trade and transport. We show that humans were preferentially attracted to areas overlying major aquifers since industrialization due to the emergent accessibility of groundwater in the 20th century. Regional heterogeneity resulted in diverse trajectories of settlement proximity to major rivers, with the attractiveness of rivers increasing in arid regions and decreasing in humid areas. Our results reveal a historical coevolution of human-water systems, which could inform water management and contribute to societal adaptation to future climate change.
Highlights
Human societies evolved alongside rivers, but how has the relationship between human settlement locations and water resources evolved over time? We conducted a dynamic analysis in the conterminous US to assess the coevolution of humans and water resources from 1790 to 2010
Explicit population maps, including the Gridded Population of the World (GPW)[19], the Global Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP)[20], LandScan[21], and WorldPOP22, are of limited utility for long-term dynamic analyses since they only became available after the 1990s, while historical census data for the conterminous US, available from 1790 to 2010, lack detailed information within counties[23]
Are humans changing where they live in relation to water? This study provided a quantitative analysis of human water coevolution over a timescale of centuries
Summary
Human societies evolved alongside rivers, but how has the relationship between human settlement locations and water resources evolved over time? We conducted a dynamic analysis in the conterminous US to assess the coevolution of humans and water resources from 1790 to 2010. The relationship between human settlement density and distance to rivers has been analyzed at high spatial resolution at a global scale[5,18], finding denser human population with increased proximity to rivers, but with regional variability based on climate, degree of urbanization, and economic development history. These studies were conducted as a temporal snapshot (for 2007)[5], or with a relatively narrow temporal window (between 1992 and 2013)[18]. Large migrations of primarily European settlers gradually expanded from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast[3], and the United States transitioned from a pre-industrial, to industrial, to post-industrial society
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