Impact of climate variability and urbanization on water storage practices and vector-borne disease incidence: Developing an understanding for risk prediction and response using Delhi, India as context

DESCRIPTION: As India’s population increases and urbanization expands, urban water supplies suffer from an increasing supply-demand gap. In addition, the highly variable seasonal rainfall year to year produces even greater uncertainty in water supply. Planning and managing the water storage allow many benefits for India’s population including water security, agricultural productivity, adaptive capacity, and reduce breeding sites for mosquitoes that transmit diseases.

OUTCOMES: The project sought to understand how select patterns of urbanization and climate variation modify the impact of human water storage practices on dengue and malaria in Delhi, India. The ultimate goal was to enable countrywide monitoring and prediction of vector-borne disease risk in which local infrastructure, human activities and behavior, and disease incidence are robustly linked with local weather and large-scale climate variability. The findings will be used to explore and propose adaptation strategies that simultaneously provide increased water security and reduced vulnerability to disease in the built environment.