District prediction of cholera risk in China based on environmental factors

Abstract

The epidemics of cholera are impacted by many climatic and environmental factors such as precipitation, temperature, elevation and so on. The paper analyzed the suitable degree of V. cholerae in China using MaxEnt based on some geographic and climatic factors, and predicted the cholera risk in each district of China according to the suitable degree. The result shows that the areas in coastal southeast, central China and western Sichuan Basin are relatively suitable for V. cholerae and the suitable degree is higher in the Xinjiang Basin than in surrounding areas. The variables of precipitation, temperature and DEM are three main environmental risky factors that affecting the distribution of cholera in China. The variables of relative humidity, the distance to the sea and air pressure also have impacts on cholera, but sunshine duration and drainage density have little impact. The AUC value of MaxEnt based model is above 0.9 which indicates a high accuracy. © 2013 The Author(s).