Satellite remote sensing-based forecasting of cholera outbreaks in the Bengal Delta

摘要

Cholera, one of the oldest known waterbome diseases, is examined as a wicked water problem in this study. The ongoing seventh pandemic of this infectious disease started in the 1960s and has been reported in over 50 countries, affecting over 7 million people (Gleick, 2008). The pattern and magnitude of the global pandemics suggest that cholera outbreaks primarily originate in coastal regions and spread inland via secondary means. Cholera bacteria survive and revive in two distinctly different environments: the micro-environment of the human intestine and the macro-environment of plankton-laden coastal and estuarine water.