Mosquito breeding site water temperature observations and simulations towards improved vector-borne disease models for Africa
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Date
2015-02-18
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Geospatial Health
Abstract
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.
Description
This article is published in Geospatial Health and alsom available at doi:10.4081/gh.2016.391
Keywords
Water temperature, Energy balance model, Larvae development time.
Citation
Geospatial Health, 10.4081