# National human footprint maps for Peru and Ecuador

**Authors:** Jose Aragon-Osejo, Lenin Beltrán, Juan Iglesias, Hólger Zambrano, Daniel Borja, Carlos Oñate, Francisco Simbaña, Freddy Valencia, Karen Rodríguez De la Vera, Luis Poveda, Fernando Proaño, Lorena Parra, María Chacón, William Llactayo, Tatiana Pequeño Saco, Walter Huamani, German Marchand, Raúl Tinoco, Luis Quispe, Alexs Arana, Anne Lucy Stilger Virnig, Patricia Huerta, Karla Jiménez, Pedro Tipula Tipula, Susana Rodríguez, Rodrigo Sierra, Andrew J. Hansen, Oscar Venter

PMC · DOI: 10.1038/s41597-025-06301-0 · Scientific Data · 2025-12-24

## TL;DR

This paper creates maps showing human impact on ecosystems in Peru and Ecuador to help track environmental goals and conservation.

## Contribution

The paper introduces national human footprint maps for Peru and Ecuador to support SDG15 reporting and biodiversity monitoring.

## Key findings

- HF maps integrate multiple human pressures like land use and infrastructure for Peru and Ecuador.
- The dataset spans from 2012 to 2021 for Peru and 2014 to 2022 for Ecuador.
- The maps enable analysis of human influence patterns for conservation planning.

## Abstract

Human Footprint (HF) maps score human pressures based on their influence and integrate them into a single spatial index to assess the naturalness of ecosystems. We produced a historical series of national HF maps for Peru and Ecuador for Sustainable Development Goal 15 (SDG15) reporting. These maps integrate pressures from built environments, land use/land cover (LULC—agriculture, pasture, tree plantations), roads and railways, population density, electrical infrastructure, oil and gas infrastructure, and mining. The dataset includes HF maps and individual pressure maps for Peru from 2012 to 2021, as well as for Ecuador for the years 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022. These maps support the analysis of spatiotemporal patterns of human influence at national and subnational levels, enabling biodiversity monitoring, modelling, and conservation in these highly biodiverse countries.

## Full-text entities

- **Chemicals:** oil (MESH:D009821)
- **Species:** Homo sapiens (human, species) [taxon 9606]

## Full text

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## Figures

2 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12780212/full.md

## References

43 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12780212/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC12780212