MALARIA PRONE AREA RISK ANALYSIS AND MAPPING USING GIS AND REMOTE SENSING TECHNIQUES: THE CASE OF HALABA KULITO TOWN, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Malaria is a common and life-threatening disease in many tropical and subtropical areas. The Anopheles mosquito transmits it to humans. Malaria transmission is greatly variable across areas depending on the limited ecology and social environment. This study is aimed to map LULC, Malaria hazard, Malaria vulnerability and Malaria risk analysis using spatial analysis techniques by overweighting through AHP approach. SPOT 6/7 images of 2016 and toposheet of 1976 with scale 1:50,000 were used to map LULC and to extract river network respectively. For mapping Malaria hazard five parameters/factors were selected such as elevation, slope, temperature, rainfall and river. Elevation and slope data were derived from SRTM satellite, temperature and rainfall obtained from National Meteorological Agency. After preparation of these factor maps, overlay function was used to integrate the factors. Weighted overlay analysis has been applied using Multi Criteria Evaluation Analytical Hierarchy Process to get coefficient value of the each of the factors. Vulnerability layer was prepared using population data. Finally, risk map was developed from integrated LULC, hazard and population density layers. The results of Malaria risk map depicted that 2 %, 48%, 49% and 1% of the total area is subject to very high, high, moderate and low level risk respectively. The risk map produced from the AHP-OS weight computation of the three parameters showing results 44%, 39% and 17%. Accordingly, more than 50% of the total area is highly exposed to Malaria hazard, over 50 percent of the total area is under moderate and low risk of Malaria. Therefore, spatial analyses for Malaria risk are considered as one of the very vital input in the aspect of planning, implementation, monitoring, forecasting and evaluation of Malaria eradication and prevention progra