Hydro-Climatic Suitability for Malaria Transmission in Africa (1971-2100)

Estimates of climatic suitability for malaria transmission in Africa over four time periods from 1971 to 2100. The data includes 28 raster layers showing the number of suitable months per year, produced using the Lisflood hydrological model and seven climate projections under the RCP 8.5 scenario. Mark W. Smith from the University of Leeds created this dataset, which also provides population estimates living in suitable areas, broken down by country.

Use Cases

• Projecting future malaria risk zones based on hydro-climatic suitability estimates.
• Analyzing changes in suitable transmission area between historical and future time periods.
• Estimating population exposure to malaria risk using country-level population month summaries.
• Validating hydrological and climate models for disease vector habitat prediction.

Strengths

• Covers a long time range from 1971 to 2100 across four distinct periods.
• Incorporates population data to estimate exposure, broken down by country.
• Uses seven distinct climate model projections under a consistent high-emission scenario (RCP 8.5).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

University of Leeds

Collection Method

Climate projections from EC-EARTH3-HR v3.1 were used to run the Lisflood hydrological model, with suitability estimated using Mordecai temperature ranges and predicted surface water.

Time Range

1971-2100

Geography

Africa