Building Capacity and Resilience Against Diseases Transmitted via Water Under Climate Perturbations and Extreme Weather Stress

Abstract

It is now generally accepted that climate variability and change, occurrences of extreme weather events, urbanisation and human pressures on the environment, and high mobility of human populations, all contribute to the spread of pathogens and to outbreaks of water-borne and vector-borne diseases such as cholera and malaria. The threats are heightened by natural disasters such as floods, droughts, earth-quakes that disrupt sanitation facilities. Aligned against these risks are the laudable Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations dealing with health, climate, life below water, and reduced inequalities. Rising to the challenges posed by these goals requires an integrated approach bringing together various scientific disciplines that deal with parts of the problem, and also the various stakeholders including the populations at risk, local governing bodies, health workers, medical professionals, international organisations, charities, and non-governmental organisations. Satellite-based instruments capable of monitoring various properties of the aquatic ecosystems and the environs have important contributions to make in this context. In this chapter, we present two case studies—the Ganga Delta region and the Vembanad Lake region in south-western India—to illustrate some of the benefits that remote sensing can bring to address the problem of global health, and use these examples to identify the capacity building that is essential to maximise the exploitation of the remote sensing potential in this context.