There are currently over eight billion people on Earth: how did we arrive at the current distribution of humans on the planet? What shape is it taking, and how will it evolve?
This book proposes an original answer to this, which is based on the explicit desire to place settlement at the heart of its questioning, by varying the level of analysis from global to local. After recalling how humans colonized the entire planet, this book presents their current distribution, which is predominantly urban.
Population dynamics (birth rate, death rate and migration) are driving changes – including the demographic decline of certain regions – which are presented and explained from the angle of residential mobility and international migration, as well as the impact of ongoing climate change. Global Settlement Dynamics concludes with a discussion of the future of these settlements, based on data from the United Nations, and the question of the sustainability of human settlements on Earth.
1. History of World Population and Settlement, Pierre-Jean Thumerelle.
2. World Population Distribution Today, Catherine Linard and Florence De Longueville.
3. An Urban World, François Moriconi-Ebrard and Joan Perez.
4. Population Decline in a Growing World, Yoann Doignon.
5. Residential Mobility and Settlement Dynamics, Frédéric Audard and Samuel Carpentier-Postel.
6. Populations in Motion: How is Global Settlement Being Redefined? Philippe Venier and Sébastien Oliveau.
7. Migration, Environmental and Climate Change, Marion Borderon.
8. Population Projections on a Global Scale, Élise Lévêque, Quentin Godoye and Dieynaba Ndour.
Yoann Doignon is a researcher in population geography at the IDEES Laboratory at the CNRS in Rouen, France. He is also a research associate at the Centre for Demographic Research, UCLouvain, Belgium.
Sébastien Oliveau is a lecturer, as well as a geographer and demographer at the University of Aix-Marseille, and Director of MSH Paris-Saclay, France. He is also a member of the Observatoire démographique de la Méditerranée, France.