S.J.Goetz, S.D.Prince, J.Small, 2000, (in) Remote sensing and GIS in public health, S.I.Hay (ed), Academic Press, London, Advances in Parisitology vol 47, pg 289-307.
View a PDF copy of this paper.
Earth-observing satellites have provided an unprecedented view of the land surface but have been exploited relatively little for the recovery of environmental variables of particular relevance to epidemiology. Recent advances in techniques to recover continuous fields of air temperature, humidity, and vapor pressure deficit from remotely-sensed observations have potentially important contributions to disease vector monitoring and related epidemiological applications. We report on the development of techniques to map environmental variables with relevance to the prediction of the relative abundance of vectors and intermediate hosts. Improvements to current methods of recovering information on vegetation properties, canopy and surface temperature and soil moisture over large areas are also discussed. Algorithms used to recover these variables incorporate visible, near-infrared and thermal infrared radiation observations derived from time series of satellite-based sensors, focused here primarily but not exclusively on the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instruments. The range of recovered variables compare favorably to surface measurements over a broad array of conditions at several study sites, and maps of retrieved variables captured patterns of spatial variability comparable to, and more locally accurate than, spatially interpolated meteorological observations. Application of multi-temporal maps of these variables are discussed in relation to current epidemiological research on the distribution and abundance of the most common disease vectors.