Human alterations of the global floodplains 1992-2019.

Floodplains provide critical ecosystem services; however, loss of natural floodplain functions caused by human alterations increase flood risks and lead to massive loss of life and property. Despite recent calls for improved floodplain protection and management, a comprehensive, global-scale assessment quantifying human floodplain alterations does not exist. We developed the first publicly available global dataset that quantifies human alterations in 15 million km floodplains along 520 major river basins during the recent 27 years (1992-2019) at 250-m resolution.