Department of Planning, School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal 462030, India.
Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jun 8;19(12):7036. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19127036.
The world has been facing a pandemic owing to COVID-19. We have also seen the geographic expansion and outbreaks of other emerging infectious diseases (EID) in recent years. This paper investigates the direct and indirect effects of land use land cover change (LULCC) on EID outbreaks in the context of Wayanad District of Kerala, India. Wayanad is in the vulnerable tropical forested region, and it is named as one of the four environmental change hotspots. The focus of this project is mainly three EIDs prevalent in this region: Kyasanur forest disease (KFD), Dengue and Leptospirosis. Our results, based on topographical map, remote sensing and extensive field work, show that the natural forest in Wayanad was replaced with agriculture and forest plantation during 1950-2018. This paper further suggests that encroachment of forest by forest plantation causes the human-animal conflict resulting in the outbreak of KFD cases. Our analysis reveals that a high number of Dengue cases is found in the forested regions of the district and over the adjacent human-made agriculture plantation areas. High and medium number of Leptospirosis cases contain a high portion of land area devoted to paddy cultivation and agricultural plantation. In summary, the results clearly show the linkage between the outbreak of above mentioned EIDs and LULCC in the context of Wayanad district, Kerala. We also discuss in detail the causal pathway involving human-environmental dynamics through which plantation leads to the outbreak of KFD. Replacing forests with plantations poses an alarming threat of disease outbreak in the community.
由于 COVID-19，世界正面临着一场大流行病。近年来，我们还看到了其他新发传染病（EID）在地理上的扩展和爆发。本文在印度喀拉拉邦韦丹努尔地区的背景下，研究了土地利用/土地覆盖变化（LULCC）对 EID 爆发的直接和间接影响。韦丹努尔位于脆弱的热带森林地区，被列为四个环境变化热点地区之一。该项目的重点主要是该地区流行的三种 EID：基孔肯雅热（KFD）、登革热和钩端螺旋体病。我们的研究结果基于地形地图、遥感和广泛的实地工作，表明在 1950 年至 2018 年间，韦丹努尔的天然森林被农业和森林种植园所取代。本文进一步指出，森林种植园对森林的侵占导致了人与动物的冲突，从而引发了 KFD 病例的爆发。我们的分析表明，该地区森林地区和相邻的人造农业种植园地区发现了大量登革热病例。高和中数量的钩端螺旋体病病例包含了大量用于种植水稻和农业种植园的土地面积。总之，这些结果清楚地表明了喀拉拉邦韦丹努尔地区 EID 爆发与土地利用/土地覆盖变化之间的联系。我们还详细讨论了通过种植园导致 KFD 爆发的人类-环境动态的因果途径。用种植园取代森林对社区的疾病爆发构成了令人震惊的威胁。
