A study revealed how much the world's population could decline in the coming decades.

The world population recently surpassed 8 billion inhabitants, a figure that for decades has been interpreted as a sign of humanity's constant growth. However, new scientific research suggests that this trend could significantly reverse in the coming decades if certain extreme global conditions were to occur.

The study was published in the scientific journal Chaos, Solitons & Fractals and presents a mathematical model designed to reconstruct the demographic evolution of humanity over the last 12,000 years. Based on this data, the researchers developed various simulations on how the world population might behave in the future.

The most striking results show scenarios in which billions of people could disappear as a consequence of drastic changes in the planet's ability to sustain human life.

The scenario that most concerns scientists

One of the analyses developed by the researchers focuses on the so-called "carrying capacity" of the Earth, a concept used to describe the maximum number of people that the planet can sustainably support using available resources.

According to the study, if that capacity were to decrease abruptly due to phenomena such as climate change, global pandemics, international conflicts, or a severe shortage of essential resources, the demographic consequences could be profound.

In one of the most extreme simulations, scientists analyzed what would happen if the Earth's carrying capacity were reduced to about 2 billion inhabitants.

Under that assumption, the world population could drop from the current 8 billion people to a figure between 4 billion and 5 billion by the year 2064. This would imply a loss of nearly one-third of the global population in just four decades.

Despite the impact these numbers generated, the authors of the work insisted that they are not announcing an inevitable demographic collapse.

On the contrary, they explained that this is a theoretical simulation aimed at understanding how human populations react to extreme disturbances and profound changes in environmental and social conditions.

"The current trajectory remains relatively stable and does not imply an imminent collapse", explained researcher Mattia Zaccone when presenting the results.

The scientists emphasized that the main goal of the model is to provide tools that allow for anticipating risks and designing strategies capable of reducing the impact of future global crises.