To provide an annual global surface of concentrations (micrograms per cubic meter) of mineral dust and sea-salt filtered fine particulate matter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5) in countries and urban areas for large-scale health and environmental research

To provide a polygon representation of urban areas with city or agglomeration name and time series population estimates.

To provide back-cast population count estimates at 30 arc-second (~1 km) resolution.

To provide back-cast population density estimates at 30 arc-second (~1 km) resolution.

To provide populated place (point) data with consistent population estimates.

To provide a global data set of average summer daytime maximum/nighttime minimum land surface temperatures (LSTs) for urban extents, as well as the LST difference between the urban area and the buffer.

To assess likely future areas of urban expansion up to the year 2030.

To provide a time series of raster population data for ntegration with other data sets.

To provide a raster representation of urban areas (or urban mask) for use with GRUMP population grids or other data sets.

To provide land area data for use with GRUMPv1 population and urban data as well as a quantitative measure of resolution of the input spatial units for GRUMPv1.

To provide a time series of raster population density data for data integration.

To permit cartographic display of countries and territories that exactly match the GRUMPv1 population surfaces

To provide populated place (point) data with consistent population estimates.

To permit cartographic display of coastlines that exactly match the GRUMPv1 population surfaces.

To permit the summation of population values by country/territory and, in combination with other data layers, the summation of population values by irregular areas represented in the other data layers and country/territory.