To provide a data set that allows users to understand how climate change impacts on water availability, crop productivity, and pasturelands (where no cropping occurs), coupled with sea-level rise, storm surge and flooding, may affect the future population distribution and climate-related internal migration in West Africa and the Lake Victoria Basin.

To provide a 1 km grid of the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) aligned with CIESIN's Gridded Population of the World, Version 4, Revision 11 (GPWv4.11) with a mask for water and no population.

To provide estimates of urban and rural populations and land areas for the years 1990, 2000, 2015 for 234 countries and statistical areas with contiguous coastal elevations of less than or equal to 5m above sea level, 5-10m above sea level, and national totals using multiple updated data sources for comparative analysis.

To provide areas of higher richness of threatened species which may be at risk from climate stressors in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To provide high and low resolution elevation in forested ecosystems in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To provide a measure of social vulnerability and "defenselessness" in the face of climate stressors in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To provide market accessibility in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To provide areas in the coastal zone of West Africa that may be particularly exposed to climate stressors owing to high population growth rates.

To provide areas in West Africa that may be particularly exposed to climate stressors owing to future high population growth.

To provide areas in the coastal zone of West Africa that may be particularly exposed to climate stressors owing to high population density.

To provide maternal education levels and poverty in West Africa.

To provide poverty levels in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To provide areas of forest cover loss in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To provide a measure of economic activity in the coastal zone of West Africa based on nighttime lights.

To provide crop production for five higher-value export crops in West Africa to aid in estimating production value.

To assess relative levels of economic activity in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To measure human security and sensitivity of populations to climate stressors in the coastal zone of West Africa.

To provide a gridded version of existing SeaWiFS data in GIS-compatible formats in order to determine concentrations of chlorophyll-a in the coastal water column and to facilitate the integration with other data.

To preserve access to the original ecosystems data used by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and other related research.

To provide data that can be used in global mangrove forest distribution modeling, land cover change analysis, global carbon accounting studies and to assist with policy-making in regards to human-environment interactions and future adaptive strategies.