Maps depicting environmental degradation across planet.
When you turn on the tap in the United Kingdom, you consider what comes out will be drinkable. Indeed, the General Assembly of the United Nations has access to safe drinking water as a human right. And yet, more than 25% of the world’s population lives in water-stressed nations. According to the World Health Organization, a similar number use a drinking water source polluted with feces.
Read more: Where is Tap Water Safe (and Unsafe) to Drink?
The red squirrel is a species of tree squirrel typical throughout Europe and Asia. The species’ specimens have declined drastically in the British Isles in recent years. This decrease is associated with the introduction by humans of the grey squirrel from North America.
Read more: Red and Gray Squirrel Distributions Mapped
While the global smoking rate has fallen over the past two decades, increasing air pollution has offset many health gains. Exposure to air pollution severely affects the respiratory system and can have negative health impacts, equivalent to smoking multiple cigarettes daily.
Read more: How Many Cigarettes You’re Indirectly Smoking Due to World Pollution Levels Mapped
Homo sapiens, like every other organism on our planet, has its own niche. A comfortable temperature for humans ranges from 17°C to 24°C (62.6 to 75.2 °F). Within that temperature span, the ideal, especially for young and older people, is 22 to 23 °C (72 to 73°F), but it could be some degrees lower with high humidity and some degrees higher with low humidity.
Read more: Human Climate Niche Mapped
We’ve all had those daytimes when our skin is not looking its best, despite doing all the right things to maintain it healthy and happy. Tons of things can impact our skin from the inside out, like health conditions and hormonal changes, but if you’re having a problem with your skin, it might also be down to some environmental factors at play where you reside.
Read more: The Best and Worst U.S. cities for Skin Health Mapped
Berries are small, rounded, juicy, and often edible fruits without stones or pits, although many seeds may be present. Typical examples are raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, or blackberries.
Read more: Berries of North America Mapped
Palms perennial flowering plants of the Arecaceae are family. Currently, 181 genera with about 2.6 thousand species. Most palm trees are characterized by their broad, compound, evergreen leaves (fronds) at the top of an unbranched trunk. But palm species are pretty diverse.
Read more: Which country has the most palm species?
During the last ice age, the sea level worldwide was over 400 feet (122 meters) below the current level, and glaciers extended over about 8% of the planet’s surface, which is equivalent to 25% of the total land area.
Read more: Have you ever wondered what the world looked like during the last ice age?
The lifetime supply of toilet paper in Portugal is incredible at 11,323 rolls, which would add up to 643 miles (1035 kilometers) worth of toilet paper, while an average Nigerian will only use about 3 miles or 4.8 kilometers (a mere 56 rolls) in their whole life.
Read more: World Toilet Paper Consumption, Mapped
On average, Europeans dispose of 1,857 cigarette butts per year, making it the smokiest continent on the planet. Andorra is the smokiest country, where people dispose of over six thousand cig butts every year.
Read more: Drowning in Cigarette Butts: Visualizing the World’s Biggest Polluter
The world has a total forest area of 4.06 billion ha (31%) of the land globally. This area equals 0.52 ha per person, but forests are not spread equally geographically and among the planet’s people. The tropical zone has the most significant proportion of the global forests (45%), accompanied by the boreal, temperate and subtropical zones. More than half (54%) of the global forests have in only 5 nations–Russia, Brazil, Canada, the U.S., and China.
Read more: Annual Change in Forest Area Mapped
Most people assume Florida is the alligator capital of the United States. The numbers say otherwise. Louisiana is home to over 2 million wild gators compared to Florida’s 1.3 million, and together, 10 southeastern states shelter an estimated 4.1 to 4.3 million of these ancient reptiles.
Read more: Alligator Range Map in the United States
The Eurasian brown bear has brown fur, a robust bone structure, and massive paws equipped with claws that can grow up to 10 cm or 3.9 inches long. A full-grown male weighs, on average, 250-300 kilograms (550-660 lb) and reaches a maximum weight of 481 kilograms (1,060 lb), and is nearly 2.5 meters or 8.2 feet long.
Read more: Bears in Europe Mapped