A new PNAS paper projects location, magnitudes, and rates of urban expansion to 2030. The supplementary information indicates the familiar Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP) dataset, of which IFPRI and CIAT participated the development, was used as the baseline data to create population density driver and to project for the future.

For us, working on the agricultural research, probably the rural extent is more relevant. Would the simple computation of [total pop – urban pop = rural pop] be legit, hopefully?

Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon poolsAbstract Urban land-cover change threatens biodiversity and affects ecosystem productivity through loss of habitat, biomass, and carbon storage. However, despite projections that world urban populations will increase to nearly 5 billion by 2030, little is known about future locations, magnitudes, and rates of urban expansion.

via Pnas

Reference