Investigating the Impact of Irrigation on Malaria Vector Larval Habitats
and Transmission using a Hydrology-based Model
Abstract
A combination of accelerated population growth and severe droughts have
created pressure on food security and driven the development of
irrigation schemes across sub-Saharan Africa. Irrigation has been
associated with increased malaria risk, but it remains difficult to
understand the underlying mechanism and develop countermeasures to
mitigate its impact. While investigating transmission dynamics is
helpful, malaria models cannot be applied directly in irrigated regions
as they typically rely only on rainfall as a source of water to quantify
larval habitats. By coupling a hydrologic model with an agent-based
malaria model for a sugarcane plantation site in Arjo, Ethiopia, we
demonstrated how incorporating hydrologic processes to estimate larval
habitats can affect malaria transmission. Using the coupled model, we
then examined the impact of an existing irrigation scheme on malaria
transmission dynamics. The inclusion of hydrologic processes increased
the variability of larval habitat area by around two-fold and resulted
in reduction in malaria transmission by 60%. In addition, irrigation
increased all habitat types in the dry season by up to 7.4 times. It
converted temporary and semi-permanent habitats to permanent habitats
during the rainy season, which grew by about 24%. Consequently, malaria
transmission was sustained all-year round and intensified during the
main transmission season, with the peak shifted forward by around one
month. Lastly, we demonstrated how habitat heterogeneity could affect
the spatiotemporal dynamics of malaria transmission. These findings
could help larval source management by identifying transmission hotspots
and prioritizing resources for malaria elimination planning.