[Back]

W. Wagner:
"Remote Sensing for Epidemiological Studies";
Talk: ICTP-IAEA Conference on Predicting Disease Patterns According to Climatic Changes, Triest; 2008-05-12 - 2008-05-14; in: "Proceedings of the Joint ICTP-IAEA Conference on Disease Patterns According to Climate Change", (2008), ISSN: 1684-0488; 87 - 90.

Earth observation satellites and airborne sensors are increasingly used in epidemiological studies. The most common usage of remote sensing has been to delimit vector habitats or breeding sites using high to medium resolution satellite images. Some studies have also
used remotely sensed vegetation and surface temperature data to characterize the vector ecosystem. Nevertheless, it has been pointed out by several authors that beyond the recurrent praises for the use of remote sensing tools in epidemiology, the range of uses, data and processes have been limited to a few. Problems have encompassed, but are not limited to, the high costs of high resolution (< 10 m) images and the technical expertise required for selecting, processing and analyzing the remote sensing data. These problems are not unique to epidemiology, but are shared with many other applications requiring
earth observation data. In recognition of these problems, space agencies and other public organizations have started extending their ground processing facilities to produce land cover and many other geophysical products, such as leaf area index, surface temperature,
soil moisture, water dynamics and many more. As a result, epidemiologists do not any longer need to process and interpret the remote sensing data themselves, but can concentrate on unraveling the complex dependencies of vector dynamics on environmental controls. This contribution reviews recent developments in remote sensing in general, and then shows some new remote sensing products derived from radar (soil moisture, wetland dynamics) and lidar (topography, vegetation height) observations that might open new opportunities for epidemiologic studies.