Browsing by Author "Tompkins, Adrian M."

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    A breeding site model for regional, dynamical malaria simulations evaluated using in situ temporary ponds observations
    (Geospatial Health, 2016) Asare, Ernest O.; Tompkins, Adrian M.; Amekudzi, Leonard K.; Ermert, Volker
    Daily observations of potential mosquito developmental habitats in a suburb of Kumasi in central Ghana reveal a strong variability in their water persistence times, which ranged between 11 and 81 days. The persistence of the ponds was strongly tied with rainfall, location and size of the puddles. A simple power-law relationship is found to fit the relationship between the average pond depth and area well. A prognostic water balance model is derived that describes the temporal evolution of the pond area and depth, incorporating the power-law geometrical relation. Pond area increases in response to rainfall, while evaporation and infiltration act as sink terms. Based on a range of evaluation metrics, the prognostic model is judged to provide a good representation of the pond coverage evolution at most sites. Finally, we demonstrate that the prognostic equation can be generalised and equally applied to a grid-cell to derive a fractional pond coverage, and thus can be implemented in spatially distributed models for relevant vector-borne diseases such as malaria
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    The ewiem Nimdie Summer School SerieS iN GhaNa Capacity Building in Meteorological Education and Research—Lessons Learned and Future Prospects
    (American Meteorological Society, 2012-05) Tompkins, Adrian M.; Parker, Douglas J.; Amekudzi, Leonard; et-al
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    The ewiem nimdie summer school series in Ghana Capacity Building in Meteorological Education and Research—Lessons Learned and Future Prospects
    (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2012-05) Tompkins, Adrian M.; Douglas J. Parker, Douglas J.; Danour, Sylvester; Amekudzi, Leonard; Bain, Caroline l.
    T H E E W I E M N I M D I E S U M M E R CONCEPT S C H O O L . The Ew iem Nimdie summer school is a biennial or triennial event that to date has been hosted in Ghana and focuses on the atmospheric sciences; “Ewiem Nimdie” means “atmospheric science” in the local Ashanti language. The first school was conducted in the summer of 2008, hosted by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) located in Kumasi, with the second school taking place at the same institution two years later, in July 2010.
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    Mosquito breeding site water temperature observations and simulations towards improved vector-borne disease models for Africa
    (Geospatial Health, 2015-02-18) Amekudzi, L.K.; Tompkins, Adrian M.; Asare, Ernest O.; Ermert, Volker; Redl, Robert
    Abstract An energy budget model is developed to predict the water temperature of typical mosquito larval developmental habitats. It assumes a homogeneous mixed water column driven by empirically derived fluxes. The model shows good agreement at both hourly and daily time scales with 10-min temporal resolution observed water temperatures, monitored between June and November 2013 within a peri-urban area of Kumasi, Ghana. There was a close match between larvae development times calculated using either the model-derived or observed water temperatures. The water temperature scheme represents a significant improvement over assuming the water temperature to be equal to air temperature. The energy budget model requires observed minimum and maximum temperatures, information that is generally available from weather stations. Our results show that hourly variations in water temperature are important for the simulation of aquatic-stage development times. By contrast, we found that larval development is insensitive to sub-hourly variations. Modelling suggests that in addition to water temperature, an accurate estimation of degree-day development time is very important to correctly predict the larvae development times. The results highlight the potential of the model to predict water temperature of temporary bodies of surface water. Our study represents an important contribution towards the improvement of weather-driven dynamical disease models, including those designed for malaria early forecasting systems.
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    Mosquito breeding site water temperature observations and simulations towards improved vector-borne disease models for Africa
    (Geospatial Health, 2016-02-18) Asare, Ernest O.; Tompkins, Adrian M.; Amekudzi, Leonard K.; Ermert, Volker; Redl, Robert
    An energy budget model is developed to predict the water temperature of typical mosquito larval developmental habitats. It assumes a homogeneous mixed water column driven by empirically derived fluxes. The model shows good agreement at both hourly and daily time scales with 10-min temporal resolution observed water temperatures, monitored between June and November 2013 within a peri-urban area of Kumasi, Ghana. There was a close match between larvae development times calculated using either the model-derived or observed water temperatures. The water temperature scheme represents a significant improvement over assuming the water temperature to be equal to air temperature. The energy budget model requires observed minimum and maximum temperatures, information that is generally available from weather stations. Our results show that hourly variations in water temperature are important for the simulation of aquatic-stage development times. By contrast, we found that larval development is insensitive to sub-hourly variations. Modelling suggests that in addition to water temperature, an accurate estimation of degree-day development time is very important to correctly predict the larvae development times. The results highlight the potential of the model to predict water temperature of temporary bodies of surface water. Our study represents an important contribution towards the improvement of weather-driven dynamical disease models, including those designed for malaria early forecasting systems