scholarly journals Extreme Precipitation Events and Infectious Disease Risk: A Scoping Review and Framework for Infectious Respiratory Viruses

Author(s):  
Kyle T. Aune ◽  
Meghan F. Davis ◽  
Genee S. Smith

Extreme precipitation events (EPE) change the natural and built environments and alter human behavior in ways that facilitate infectious disease transmission. EPEs are expected with high confidence to increase in frequency and are thus of great public health importance. This scoping review seeks to summarize the mechanisms and severity of impacts of EPEs on infectious diseases, to provide a conceptual framework for the influence of EPEs on infectious respiratory diseases, and to define areas of future study currently lacking in this field. The effects of EPEs are well-studied with respect to enteric, vector-borne, and allergic illness where they are shown to moderately increase risk of illness, but not well-understood in relation to infectious respiratory illness. We propose a framework for a similar influence of EPEs on infectious respiratory viruses through several plausible pathways: decreased UV radiation, increased ambient relative humidity, and changes to human behavior (increased time indoors and use of heating and cooling systems). However, limited work has evaluated meteorologic risk factors for infectious respiratory diseases. Future research is needed to evaluate the effects of EPEs on infectious respiratory diseases using individual-level case surveillance, fine spatial scales, and lag periods suited to the incubation periods of the disease under study, as well as a full characterization of susceptible, vulnerable, and sensitive population characteristics.

Ecology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison K. Post ◽  
Kristin P. Davis ◽  
Jillian LaRoe ◽  
David L. Hoover ◽  
Alan K. Knapp

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Changjun Wan ◽  
Changxiu Cheng ◽  
Sijing Ye ◽  
Shi Shen ◽  
Ting Zhang

Precipitation is an essential climate variable in the hydrologic cycle. Its abnormal change would have a serious impact on the social economy, ecological development and life safety. In recent decades, many studies about extreme precipitation have been performed on spatio-temporal variation patterns under global changes; little research has been conducted on the regionality and persistence, which tend to be more destructive. This study defines extreme precipitation events by percentile method, then applies the spatio-temporal scanning model (STSM) and the local spatial autocorrelation model (LSAM) to explore the spatio-temporal aggregation characteristics of extreme precipitation, taking China in July as a case. The study result showed that the STSM with the LSAM can effectively detect the spatio-temporal accumulation areas. The extreme precipitation events of China in July 2016 have a significant spatio-temporal aggregation characteristic. From the spatial perspective, China’s summer extreme precipitation spatio-temporal clusters are mainly distributed in eastern China and northern China, such as Dongting Lake plain, the Circum-Bohai Sea region, Gansu, and Xinjiang. From the temporal perspective, the spatio-temporal clusters of extreme precipitation are mainly distributed in July, and its occurrence was delayed with an increase in latitude, except for in Xinjiang, where extreme precipitation events often take place earlier and persist longer.


Author(s):  
Maurizio Iannuccilli ◽  
Giorgio Bartolini ◽  
Giulio Betti ◽  
Alfonso Crisci ◽  
Daniele Grifoni ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Ya. Groisman ◽  
Richard W. Knight ◽  
Thomas R. Karl

Abstract In examining intense precipitation over the central United States, the authors consider only days with precipitation when the daily total is above 12.7 mm and focus only on these days and multiday events constructed from such consecutive precipitation days. Analyses show that over the central United States, a statistically significant redistribution in the spectra of intense precipitation days/events during the past decades has occurred. Moderately heavy precipitation events (within a 12.7–25.4 mm day−1 range) became less frequent compared to days and events with precipitation totals above 25.4 mm. During the past 31 yr (compared to the 1948–78 period), significant increases occurred in the frequency of “very heavy” (the daily rain events above 76.2 mm) and extreme precipitation events (defined as daily and multiday rain events with totals above 154.9 mm or 6 in.), with up to 40% increases in the frequency of days and multiday extreme rain events. Tropical cyclones associated with extreme precipitation do not significantly contribute to the changes reported in this study. With time, the internal precipitation structure (e.g., mean and maximum hourly precipitation rates within each preselected range of daily or multiday event totals) did not noticeably change. Several possible causes of observed changes in intense precipitation over the central United States are discussed and/or tested.


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