1998 has been completed for the entire world. Verification and validation (V&V) studies were conducted routinely for all regions and more extensively for Israel, Germany, and the southwestern US. GIS were essential for conflation of diverse input variables, computation of probability coefficients, allocation of population to cells, and reconciliation of cell totals with aggregate control totals. Remote sensing was an essential source of two input variables—land cover and nighttime lights—and one ancillary database—high resolution panchromatic imagery—used in V&V of the population model and resulting LandScan database.

13