A Regional Model for Malaria Vector Developmental Habitats Evaluated Using Explicit, Pond-Resolving Surface Hydrology Simulations

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 22;11(3):e0150626. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150626. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Dynamical malaria models can relate precipitation to the availability of vector breeding sites using simple models of surface hydrology. Here, a revised scheme is developed for the VECTRI malaria model, which is evaluated alongside the default scheme using a two year simulation by HYDREMATS, a 10 metre resolution, village-scale model that explicitly simulates individual ponds. Despite the simplicity of the two VECTRI surface hydrology parametrization schemes, they can reproduce the sub-seasonal evolution of fractional water coverage. Calibration of the model parameters is required to simulate the mean pond fraction correctly. The default VECTRI model tended to overestimate water fraction in periods subject to light rainfall events and underestimate it during periods of intense rainfall. This systematic error was improved in the revised scheme by including the a parametrization for surface run-off, such that light rainfall below the initial abstraction threshold does not contribute to ponds. After calibration of the pond model, the VECTRI model was able to simulate vector densities that compared well to the detailed agent based model contained in HYDREMATS without further parameter adjustment. Substituting local rain-gauge data with satellite-retrieved precipitation gave a reasonable approximation, raising the prospects for regional malaria simulations even in data sparse regions. However, further improvements could be made if a method can be derived to calibrate the key hydrology parameters of the pond model in each grid cell location, possibly also incorporating slope and soil texture.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Climate
  • Computer Simulation
  • Ecosystem
  • Hydrology / methods
  • Malaria / transmission*
  • Models, Statistical
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Ponds / parasitology*
  • Rain / parasitology
  • Soil / parasitology

Substances

  • Soil

Grants and funding

EOA was funded by two International Centre of Theoretical Physics (ICTP) programme, namely the Italian government’s funds-in-trust programme and the ICTP PhD Sandwich Training and Educational Programme (STEP). The study was also partly funded by two European Union Seventh Framework Programmes projects: HEALTHY FUTURES under the grant agreement number 266327 and QWeCI (Quantifying Weather and Climate Impacts on health in developing countries) under the grant agreement number 243964.