Summary

Description

The Human Appropriation of Net Primary Productivity (HANPP) as a Percentage of Net Primary Product (NPP) portion of the HANPP Collection represents a map identifying regions in which human consumption of NPP is greatly in excess of production by local ecosystems. Humans appropriate net primary productivity through the consumption of food, paper, wood and fiber, which alters the composition of the atmosphere, levels of biodiversity, energy flows within food webs and the provision of important ecosystem services. Net primary productivity (NPP), the net amount of solar energy converted to plant organic matter through photosynthesis, can be measured in units of elemental carbon and represents the primary food energy source for the world's ecosystems. This dataset is distributed by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).