Key Takeaways
- Human movement has increased 40-fold since the Industrial Revolution
- Marine animal movement has halved due to fishing and whaling
- Human movement now exceeds all land animals combined by up to 40 times
A groundbreaking study reveals human mobility has exploded 40-fold since the Industrial Revolution, while marine animal movements have been cut in half due to industrial fishing and whaling. Published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the research shows human movement now dwarfs all land animals combined by up to 40 times.
What’s Driving This Massive Shift?
Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, along with German and US institutions, attribute this dramatic change to population growth, motor vehicles, fossil fuels, and extensive infrastructure development. While walking dominated human movement in 1850, it now accounts for just one-seventh of all human mobility.
Breakdown of Human Movement Patterns
Today’s human movement is dominated by motorized road vehicles (65%), followed by walking and cycling (20% each). Air travel constitutes 10% and rail transport about 5% of global human movement.
The authors wrote: “The biomass movement of marine animals, which we find to be the living world’s largest, has been halved since 1850 due to industrial fishing and whaling, while human biomass movement has increased by about 40-fold.”
Global Inequality in Movement
The study reveals significant disparities between income groups. High-income countries, with just 16% of the world’s population, account for nearly 30% of human movements, showing per capita movement almost twice as high as other income groups. Meanwhile, low-income countries hosting 9% of the global population contribute only 4% to worldwide human movement.
Related Biomass Study Reveals Parallel Trends
In a separate Nature Communications paper, researchers including those from Weizmann Institute found wild mammal biomass has declined by more than half since 1850. Marine mammal biomass alone dropped by around 70%, primarily affecting larger species like blue, humpback, fin, and sperm whales.
Conversely, biomass of humans and domesticated mammals such as cows and sheep has increased nearly fivefold. Both studies analyzed data from the History database of the Global Environment (HYDE) and UN World Population Prospects database.
