Systems Approach to Climate, Water, and Diarrhea in Hubli-Dharwad, India
Authored by Jonathan Mellor, Emily Kumpel, Ayse Ercumen, Julie Zimmerman
Date Published: 2016
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b02092
Sponsors:
No sponsors listed
Platforms:
NetLogo
Model Documentation:
Other Narrative
Flow charts
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Anthropogenic climate change will likely increase diarrhea rates for
communities with inadequate water, sanitation, or hygiene facilities
including those with intermittent water supplies. Current approaches to
study these impacts typically focus on the effect of temperature on
all-cause diarrhea while excluding precipitation and diarrhea etiology
while not providing actionable adaptation strategies. We develop a
partially mechanistic, systems approach to estimate future diarrhea
prevalence and design adaptation strategies. The model incorporates
downscaled global climate models, water quality data, quantitative
microbial risk assessment, and pathogen prevalence in an agent-based
modeling framework incorporating precipitation and diarrhea etiology. It
is informed using water quality and diarrhea data from Hubli-Dharwad, India a city with an intermittent piped water supply exhibiting seasonal
water quality variability vulnerable to climate change. We predict
all-cause diarrhea prevalence to increase by 4.9\% (Range: 1.5-9.0\%) by
2011-2030, 11.9\% (Range: 7.1-18.2\%) by 2046-2065, and 18.2\% (Range:
9.1-26.2\%) by 2080-2099. Rainfall is an important modifying factor.
Rotavirus prevalence is estimated to decline by 10.5\% with
Cryptosporidium and E. coli prevalence increasing by 9.9\% and 6.3\%, respectively, by 2080-2099 in this setting. These results suggest that
ceramic water filters would be recommended as a climate adaptation
strategy over chlorination. This work highlights the vulnerability of
intermittent water supplies to climate change and the urgent need for
improvements.
Tags
Point-of-use
Developing-countries
Risk-assessment
Northern coastal ecuador
Safe drinking-water
Microbiological effectiveness
Ambient-temperature
Fecal contamination
Childhood diarrhea
Human
rotavirus