Measuring global human accessibility to essential daily necessities and services

Abstract

Abstract Equitable access to daily necessities and services is crucial for enhancing human quality of life and achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. However, knowledge about global access to these essential resources remains limited and fragmented, due to the absence of a comprehensive infrastructure inventory and scalable accessibility measures. Here we compile a global database of points of interest to represent six essential infrastructure categories—living, healthcare, education, entertainment, public transit, and working. We use refined 30-meter resolution friction surface data to map travel time to these critical infrastructures as a proxy for accessibility across the urban-rural continuum and assess disparities across geographic, urbanization, and socio-economic contexts. Our results reveal uneven access in infrastructure availability, per capita distribution, and travel time. Globally, 62.8% (3.08 billion) and 82.5 % (4.04 billion) of urban residents live within a 15- and 30-minute walk of essential resources, respectively. These results highlight the need to optimize strategies for planning, allocation, and management of critical infrastructure to promote inclusive and sustainable development.