Map of projected population in #India 2015

Here is a map that I created that shows projected population in India in 2015.  The data comes from the Population Count Grid, Future Estimates of the Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3). Future Estimates consists of estimates of human population for the years 2005, 2010, and 2015 by 2.5 arc-minute grid cells and associated data sets dated circa 2000. For more information, view the metadata.

As with my other maps, I created this map using Esri ArcMap 10. Each 2.5-min cell contains a value of the estimated population for that area in 2015.   I have overlayed the population layer on top of the Ganges-Brahmaputra River Basin layer.

Unfortunately, I was not able to create a legend for this map. I have shared an ArcMap document (.mxd), a PDF file, and JPEG image via Google Drive. By selecting the population layer in the .mxd file and using the identification arrow, you can find out the population for that 2.5-min cell..

Citation:

Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)/Columbia University, United Nations Food and Agriculture Programme (FAO), and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT). 2005. Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3): Population Count Grid, Future Estimates. Palisades, NY: NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/gpw-v3-population-count-future-estimates. Accessed 09 April 2013.

#India: areas under irrigation map

After being unhappy with the maps in Brahma Chellaney’s book Water: Asia's New Battleground, I decided to create my own map of areas under irrigation in India.

For this map, I used irrigation data from the global map of irrigation areas from AQUASTAT, the FAO's global information system on water and agriculture.  Data shows the percentage of irrigated land per 5 arcmin cell, which is approximately 8547 hectares: someone check my calculations!

Source: Stefan Siebert, Petra Döll, Sebastian Feick, Jippe Hoogeveen and Karen Frenken (2007) Global Map of Irrigation Areas version 4.0.1. Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany / Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy

The number of cells in the AQUASTAT data set is huge: 4320 columns x 1260 rows = 5,443,200 cells.  To bring this down to size, I clipped the map to the area of India.  Even so, I had more data than ArcMap could handle (max: 10,000 items) in computing equal percentage intervals (see the map legend).  Nonetheless, the resulting map corresponded well to the Global Map of Irrigated Ares.  The Ganges River basin is the most irrigated area in the world.

You may download the map of irrigated areas in India in JPEG format or the map of irrigated areas of India in PDF format. Alternatively, if you would like to muck around with the map itself, download the ArcMap document showing irrigated areas of India.