ABSTRACT
The scientific community recognizes that anthropogenic impacts on the natural environment—including land use alteration, human migration, habitat encroachment and wildlife translocation, rapid transport, and climate change—play an important role in the distribution of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (Confalonieri 2005; Foley et al. 2005; Patz et al. 2000; Patz and Confalonieri 2005; Wilcox and Gubler 2005). The growing field of landscape epidemiology addresses these problems using ecological and epidemiological data, creating opportunities to mitigate disease incidence in humans based on an understanding of disease vector and reservoir habitats in the environment (Galuzo 1975; Pavlovski 1966; Reisen 2010). A major component of the landscape epidemiological approach is the employment of geospatial data and methodologies. While basic geospatial concepts have been utilized in epidemiology for centuries (e.g., mapping of plague outbreaks in the 1600s; Koch 2005), advances in geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing technologies enable studies to take place across vast geographic regions over extended time periods. These technologies, along with research approaches that incorporate both ecological and human epidemiological data, promise continued advancements within the discipline.
