The project prepared a distributed population layer for 2030 for the Nile Basin countries. It is based on the medium projection for 2030 of the United Nations Population Division (UNPD).

Decision makers and planners need to know the growth, density, and distribution of human population in order to plan infrastructure, schools, and hospitals, but also to assess future need for agricultural produce or electricity per sub administrative unit.

The 2030 distributed dataset combines information from various sources.

LandScan 2004 serves as GIS base layer. This database presents census counts distributed to cells based on probability coefficients derived from road proximity, slope, land cover, and nighttime lights. The grid system has a lat-long cell-size of 30 arc-seconds, which equals approximately 1 km at the equator.

LandScan uses population totals obtained from the US Bureau of Census. This database differs from the data set of the United Nations Population Division, as each organization updates population surveys using different adjustments for birth and death rate, and international immigration.

Country totals for 2030, as well as rural and urban growth rates, were obtained from the United Nations Population Division.

Urban areas were obtained from AFRICOVER and the ESRI Gazetteer. The project digitized urban polygons for DR Congo, Egypt, and Ethiopia.

The following assumptions were made:

• 2005 and 2030 country totals were obtained from UNPD;
• differences between US Bureau of Census and UNPD country totals were adjusted proportionally per grid cell;
• urban growth was spread proportionally over urban areas;
• rural growth was spread proportionally over rural areas;
• areas classified as urban in 2005 remain urban in 2030;
• areas classified as rural in 2005 remain rural in 2030, with the exception of rural areas in close proximity to existing urban areas.

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