EPIDEMIO - Earth observation in epidemiology
There is a growing international awareness about the importance of the epidemiology of diseases and it is recognized that improved up-to date information of the environment, in which infectious diseases occur, will help epidemiologists to study, understand and predict threats to human health.
Within the scope of the project "Epidemio" satellites will join this field as data source of epidemics. The scope of this ESA - founded project is to demonstrate and use the potential of Earth Observation for a new service which supplies new types of environmental information for epidemiology. Jena-Optronik was the leader of the international project team. RSS was respinsible for all land cover and land cover change products and services based on ENVISAT MERIS und ASAR und Landsat ETM satellite data.
The scope of this project was to test and demonstrate the potential of Earth Observation for a new service which supplies new and improved types of information.
A group of epidemiologists, the User Group, has provided the information requirements for their work to be supplied by the project. These include: urban maps, digital elevation maps, maps of water bodies, vegetation maps, land cover maps, historical maps, land surface temperature maps and a service for monitoring wind-blown Sahelian dust.
Project objectives:
- Survey on user requirements and service definition
- Design and testing of a satellite based monitoring system for WHO and other health organisations
- Production of specific map products such as digital elevation mpas, water body maps, wind blown dust maps, historical land cover change maps and land cover maps and rush vegetation maps based on low resolution satellite imagery,
- Assessment of land cover change from ENVISAT MERIS und ASAR und Landsat ETM imagery. GIS based risk assessment for epidemic diseases
- Study sites
- funded by the European Space Agency