Abstract
BackgroundIn the scope of climate change the possible recurrence and/or expansion of vector-borne diseases poses a major concern. The occurrence of vector competent Anopheles species as well as favorable climatic conditions may lead to the re-emergence of autochthonous malaria in Europe and the Mediterranean area. However, high-resolution assessments of possible changes of Anopheles vector distributions and of potential malaria transmission stability in the European-Mediterranean area under changing climatic conditions during the course of the 21st century are not available yet.MethodsBoosted Regression Trees are applied to relate climate variables and land cover classes to vector occurrences. Changes in future vector distributions and potential malaria transmission stability due to climate change are assessed using state-of-the art regional climate model simulations.ResultsDistinct changes in the distributions of the dominant vectors of human malaria are to be expected under climate change. In general, temperature and precipitation changes will lead to a northward spread of the occurrences of Anopheles vectors. Yet, for some Mediterranean areas, occurrence probabilities may decline.ConclusionsPotential malaria transmission stability is increased in areas where the climatic changes favor vector occurrences as well as significantly impact the vectorial capacity. As a result, vector stability shows the highest increases between historical and future periods for the southern and south-eastern European areas. Anopheles atroparvus, the dominant vector in large parts of Europe, might play an important role with respect to changes of the potential transmission stability.
Highlights
In the scope of climate change the possible recurrence and/or expansion of vector-borne diseases poses a major concern
Regional climate model bias correction Correction of the regional climate model (RCM) data using empirical quantile mapping reduced the bias of KNMI-RACMO22E precipitation by 0.17 mm/day to a bias, averaged across all months, of 0.43 mm/day
The bias of CLMcom-CCLM4-8-17 precipitation was0.38 mm/day lower compared to the raw RCM output and amounted after bias correction to 0.47 mm/day averaged over all months
Summary
In the scope of climate change the possible recurrence and/or expansion of vector-borne diseases poses a major concern. The occurrence of vector competent Anopheles species as well as favorable climatic conditions may lead to the re-emergence of autochthonous malaria in Europe and the Mediterranean area. High-resolution assessments of possible changes of Anopheles vector distributions and of potential malaria transmission stability in the European-Mediterranean area under changing climatic conditions during the course of the 21st century are not available yet. Projections of future climate change show that there will be significant warming rates until the end of the 21st century, strongest over north-eastern Europe in winter and over Central Europe and the Mediterranean area in summer. An assessment of possible future changes of the length of the malaria transmission season using climate output from General Circulation Models (GCMs) and different malaria impact models shows that until the 2080s a northward shift of the malaria epidemic belt over central-northern Europe might occur [6]. For Lower Saxony in Germany Schröder & Schmidt [9] showed that in the second half of the 20th century the temperature-dependent malaria transmission rate of An. atroparvus from May to October was two months and might take values up to five or six months until the end of the 21st century
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