Butler

In his blog and in an article published in April 2011 in the magazine Nature, reporter Declan Butler analyzes the world population size living within 30, 75, 150 and 300 km of each of the world's nuclear power plants with the intention to document how many people would be affected by nuclear accidents and to identify the locations that could endanger the most people.

His research is based on data of the Nuclear Reactor Information System of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the reactor data base of the United Nations Environment Programme, Global Resource Information Database (UNEP-GRID) and the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP) of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), University of Columbia. These figures were calculated in cooperation with the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (NASA) and CIESIN. The complete data set is available as Google Earth file.

Links:

• Butler, Declan (2011). Reactors, residents and risk. Published online 21 April 2011, Nature.(http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110421/full/472400a/box/1.html)
• Butler, Declan (2011): Google Earth kmz Data
• [Umweltprogramm der Vereinten Nation (UNEP-GRID-Geneva, United Nations Environment Programme, Division of Early Warning and Assessment, Geneva)] (http://www.grid.unep.ch/index.php?lang=en)
• [NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) – Hosted by CIESIN at Columbia University] (http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/)
• Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP)