Case Studies: Monitoring Environmental Indicators of Vector-borne Disease

» Monitoring Environmental Indicators of Vector-borne Disease from Space: A New Opportunity For RADARSAT-2

S.Kaya, J. Sokol, and T.J. Pultz. 2004. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, Vol. 30 No. 3, 560-565.

Summary of report:

Operational applications utilizing Earth observation satellite data are increasingly being developed for epidemiological studies including the mapping of high-risk regions for disease development. This paper examines the use of RADARSAT-2 data to identify environmental variables such as wetland characteristics for breeding malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes.

Using a Kenya coastal region for a study site, the research results indicated the potential of radar for classifying land cover, specifically environmental variables related to malaria vector breeding grounds.

RADARSAT-2 data is expected to improve classification results due to two of the new features of the system: multi-polarization and high-resolution. Multi-polarization is expected to increase the accuracy of land cover mapping and potentially provide additional levels of classification previously unavailable when using single polarization.

Equally important to improving classification is the new RADARSAT-2 high-resolution Ultra-fine beam mode (3m). A limiting factor in the past, in the use of SAR data, has been insufficient spatial resolution of the data that is required to identify important environmental targets. Identifying localized targets is critical to obtaining realistic results for the potential presence of vector breeding grounds. The RADARSAT-2 Ultra-fine beam mode option should greatly assist in the identification of more localize breeding grounds.

Summary of Capabilities
	Polarization						Notes
	Single polarization			Dual polarization
	Ultra fine	HH	VV	HH-HV	VV-HV	Quad-pol
General Wetlands discrimination							Smaller localized wetlands require higher resolution (Kaya et al, 2004)
							Shallow incidence angles and polarimetric analysis has been demonstrated to provide broad wetland class discrimination (Sokol et al, 1998)

Sokol J. McNairn H., Pultz T., Touzi R., and Livingstone C. 1998. Monitoring wetland hydrology with airborne polarimetric radar. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Canadian Remote Sensing Symposium, 10-13 May 1998 Calgary Alta. CASI, p. 111-114.