2015 Articles

DEVELOP Project Uses Satellite Data to Help Control Malaria in Zanzibar

Kruczkiewicz, Andrew J.; Lessel, Jerrod

A key factor in predicting where malaria outbreaks are likely to happen is knowledge of the land surface. This article has described a NASA DEVELOP study to test the effectiveness of using land classifications from satellite remote sensing as a means to help control the spread of malaria in Zanzibar. The study used both a Landsat 5 image and a series of mosaicked ISERV images, and the results revealed benefits with respect to the classification from both types of images. The Landsat 5 image was able to accurately classify the brush/shrubs, forest, urban areas, mangroves, and sugarcane/rice fields land cover classes. While the ISERV images were not able to differentiate between the various land cover classes nearly as well, they were able to classify high spatial resolution features such as roads that the Landsat 5 image could not detect. One of the main benefits of using remotely sensed products such as the ones used in the methodology described in
this study is that the maps can be updated to include additional layers, e.g., ecosystem conditions and urban growth change. Hence there are opportunities to expand this study in the future.