Abstracts

Diversity of the Fauna

We have a research program for developing new remote sensing applications and are concentrating particularly on issues important in Kazakhstan and Central Asia context, such as natural diseases (plague etc.) foci monitoring and epidemic situation forecast. This becomes especially important after the USSR collapse, following degradation of anti-epidemic services and in connection with the recent economic and epidemic situation. Plague focus is investigated as a dynamic complex of biological, climate, helio- and geophysical and anthropogenic interactions. Effective anti-epidemic strategies depend on detailed foci inventories and monitoring, which are costly and time-consuming to acquire by traditional ground surveys. Aerial imagery alongside with on-ground studies has been utilized and evaluated in 1997-1999 for Aksu test area in southeast Kazakhstan. Vast arid areas of Central Asian natural plague focus are quite suitable for further development of new anti-epidemic approaches due to sameness of natural conditions and presence of 40-year survey data of the USSR Plague Prevention Service (used for retrospective and comparative analysis). The following factors are monitored as vital for the forecast: distribution, population size and population density of the main plague carriers (rodents); ground water level; vegetation status; weather conditions. These data may be quickly obtained by means of remote sensing for numerous crucial sites with certain periodicity. Activity of natural disease foci depends also on helio- and geophysical cycles. All this, supplemented by data of parasitological and serological analysis from crucial sites may be extrapolated for the whole plague focus. The approach proved to be useful for the natural plague focus monitoring and short- term forecast of epizootic situation. Satellite remote sensing will be the most cost-effective way of acquiring information on the state of the foci.

Note. Abstracts are published in author's edition

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