Collaborative Research: HNDS-I: Data Infrastructure for Research on Historical Settlement and Population Growth in the United States

This project creates a data platform called HiSPLUS (Historical Settlement and Population Layers for the U.S.) that describes the history of population and housing patterns in the United States from 1860 to 2020. Scientists can use this new platform to study the social, demographic, urban and environmental transformations experienced throughout the country over the past two centuries. This project creates new datasets that include information about the characteristics of built structures, land use, and the distribution of the population, and merges them together. Linking these data in a single data platform creates a novel data resource that contains historical housing and population datasets with the highest spatial and temporal resolution to date. The HiSPLUS platform advances innovative methods of data analysis by developing approaches for merging spatial data from satellite imagery with population data and land parcel records and developing tools for correcting errors in the data as it evolves over time. The project also develops new models for local population counts that are based on the characteristics of housing structures.