Impacts of Satellite-Based Rainfall Products on Predicting Spatial Patterns of Rift Valley Fever Vectors*

Abstract Spatiotemporal rainfall variability is a key parameter controlling the dynamics of mosquitoes/vector-borne diseases such as malaria, Rift Valley fever (RVF), or dengue. Impacts from rainfall heterogeneity at small scales (i.e., 1–10 km) on the risk of epidemics (i.e., host bite rate or number of bites per host and per night) must be thoroughly evaluated. A model with hydrological and entomological components for risk prediction of the RVF zoonosis is proposed. The model predicts the production of two mosquito species within a 45 km × 45 km area in the Ferlo region, Senegal. The three necessary steps include 1) best rainfall estimation on a small scale, 2) adequate forcing of a simple hydrological model leading to pond dynamics (ponds are the primary larvae breeding grounds), and 3) best estimate of mosquito life cycles obtained from the coupled entomological model. The sensitivity of the model to the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of rainfall is first tested using high-resolution rain fields from a weather radar. The need for high-resolution rain data is thus demonstrated. Several high-resolution satellite rainfall products are evaluated in the region of interest using a dense rain gauge network. Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis 3B42, version 6 (TMPA-3B42V6), and 3B42 in real time (TMPA-3B42RT); Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) in near–real time (GSMaP-NRT) and Moving Vector with Kalman version (GSMaP-MVK); African Rainfall Estimation Algorithm, version 2.0 (RFE 2.0); Climate Prediction Center (CPC) morphing technique (CMORPH); and Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN) are tested and finally corrected using a probability matching method. The corrected products are then used as forcing to the coupled model over the 2003–10 period. The predicted number and size of ponds and their dynamics are greatly improved compared to the model forced only by a single gauge. A more realistic spatiotemporal distribution of the host bite rate of the RVF vectors is thus expected.