USAGE OF GPS, GIS AND MODERN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL TOOLS IN BIOSECURITY OF ANIMAL AND ANIMAL PRODUCTS
Nomadic pastoralism is a major and efficient low-cost method of animal husbandry in arid and semi-arid (ASAL) areas of Africa & Asia . It remains one of the indigenous strategies best adapted to climate disturbances due to frequent drought in dry land areas . In arid and semi-arid areas, movements become important adaptive measures used to meet the demands of seasonally available water and pasture. Disease causing agents called pathogens benefit greatly from dynamic states created by animal movements because infected and susceptible animals come into contact as they share common resources e.g. watering points, salt licks or grazing field.
A Geographical Information System (GIS) can be used as a tool for any discipline which handles with data that can be connected with geographical locations, such as countries, regions, communities, or co-ordinates. The systems have been developing rapidly in the past and today there are a number of different software which are more user-friendly than in the past. GIS is about to become tools for everyone.
The need for using this system also in the field of veterinary medicine has been emerging during the last decade. In 1991 Sanson et al. described the systems and possible applications in the field of veterinary medicine. Still, the most used application of GIS is to produce descriptive maps. However, the potential of GIS is much larger. GIS has been included in decision support systems for control of infectious diseases in animals
Geospatial technology is a significant scientific finding, which moved the possibilities of humankind to a brand-new level.
What is geospatial technology?
Unlike ordinary spatial data, geospatial technology innovations allow us to determine the exact location of an object or person on our planet.We apply them in multiple spheres, from geospatial technologies for maps like GPS navigators for drivers to vast-scope remote sensing by satellites orbiting Earth.Using geospatial technology is comparatively inexpensive and simple, while its possibilities are next to unlimited. Applications of geospatial technologies are incorporated in almost any sector, industry, or research where the location is important.
Types Of Geospatial Technologies
Geospatial technology correlates an object’s position with its geographic coordinates. The idea is not new and served for observing places with pigeons or balloons first, primarily for mapmaking purposes. However, it is dramatically deployed in the era of satellites and computers
Identification of geospatial data enables monitoring, tracing, measuring, assessment, identification, or modeling. The basic list of geospatial technologies encompasses remote sensing (RS), GPS, and GIS.
Remote Sensing
Different types of remote sensing as geospatial technology enables us to study objects or surfaces at faraway distances employing their reflectance properties. Sensing them with active or passive systems, measuring and analyzing the response, experts can assess the target’s properties and make corresponding conclusions.
Satellites revolve our planet and generate imagery based on several source options and methods of geospatial technology for data collection:
- Electromagnetic impulses(including visible, infrared, and microwave channels);
- Filmed or digital areal imageryfrom piloted and non-piloted vehicles (e.g., airplanes and drones);
- Radars and lidarsenabling to calculate the distance with radio or light signals correspondingly.
Advanced systems distinguish objects of one meter and even smaller.
Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
GPS bases on the geometric phenomenon of triangulation. As the name suggests, calculations ground on three sources. It is a typical situation, however. When it relates to space and signals, scientists have to bear in mind that transmitted energy travels at the speed of light, causing possible calculation discrepancies. To minimize errors and to make the calculations more accurate, global positioning systems use four sources.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
GIS, one type of geospatial technology, merges spatial and non-spatial data, remote sensing imagery, GPS data points to elaborate a single complete system. It allows users to collect, group, and analyze required information on multiple layers, including elevation, vegetation species, forest health, roads, water bodies, animals, etc.
Why Is Geospatial Technology Important?
The innovation helps to find answers to many questions arising in multiple industries and sectors. At the dawn of its development, the data access and its application scale were limited.
Nowadays, geospatial technology importance went far beyond cartographic or military needs.
Geospatial technology allows tracking a questioned object and referring it to a specific location. This feature helps people to complete scientific or non-scientific tasks, governmental and non-governmental, military and civil.
The importance of geospatial technology is equally recognized by common people and giant corporations. It serves to fulfill both strategic and minor tasks like tracking atomic submarines or sharing one’s location with a friend.
Applications Of Geospatial Technology
The scope of geospatial data use is vast: it embraces every sphere or industry where geographical position matters. The list includes geography proper, ecology, tourism, marine sciences, agriculture, forestry, marketing and advertising, military forces, navy, aircraft, law enforcement, logistics and transportation, astronomy, demography, healthcare, meteorology, and many others.
Here are some typical examples of how geospatial technology is applied:
- Logistics. Tracking goods and ensuring their quality.
- Transportations. Identifying location and time of arrival, route making, and navigation.
- Meteorology. Referring weather forecasts to particular territories.
- Forestry. Detecting forest fires and deforestation & preventing large-scale wildfires(read more about satellite monitoring of forest fires and deforestation in Brazil Amazon).
- Agriculture. Assessing vegetation state on a selected terrain.
- Healthcare. Monitoring areas of epidemic outbreaks.
- Ecology. Tracing species populations in certain areas, preventing and addressing calamities.
- Marketing and advertising. Targeting ads to relevant regions.
- Real estate. Visualizing and analyzing real estate objects remotely.
- Insurance. Managing risks in questioned areas (e.g., via historical georeferenced data analysis).
Future Of Geospatial Technology
Even though it is difficult to imagine a sphere that does not use geospatial technologies, the finding prospects are even more promising. It assists in making weighted decisions and allows even more accurate analysis.
The technologies find new implementations, and related researches go further. They are affordable for a wide audience, and their practical use inspires a greater spectrum of applications in the future. The reason for their popularity is in data accuracy, which means better precision and, thus, increased productivity.
Geospatial technologies enhance the performance of artificial intelligence and smart machinery in multiple spheres and agriculture in particular. Remotely controlled equipment completes numerous tasks via GPS and digital dashboards. Robots and smart machinery in the fields seem futuristic no longer, and it is not the limit.
Expansion and new application solutions are expected in biosecurity, education, construction, engineering, ecology, food supplies, precision agriculture, financial market, statistics, transportation, to mention a few.
Basically, geospatial data enhances performance in each sphere, outlining specific needs or issues in selected regions. When it comes to farming, for example, landowners can save costs and efforts by treating only critical spots with exact coordinates on the field map and see a big picture of their farmlands at the same time.
Further employment of GPS in the automobile and aircraft industries enables frequent use of driverless vehicles and UAVs as a matter of fact.
The development of geospatial technologies brings quite an interesting correlation onto the scene. New achievements in this branch mean the corresponding upgrade of related industries. So, the improvement process is not likely to stop, ensuring even greater precision, credibility, performance, quality, and security.
Geographical information system
The data can be stored in two formats; vector-based and grid-based.The maps of the vector-based format display models of the real world using points, lines and polygons. Vector digitising captures a point as a x, y co-ordinate, while a line is captured as an ordered string of such co-ordinates. A polygon is a closed line. The grid-based format of data is captured as information of each quadratic cell in a screen and could be looked at as a photo of the area. GIS displays the geo-referenced data as theme layers which can be displayed one at a time or on top of each other, like overheads on a projector. These are stored in a geo-relational database. Each feature has attribute data linked to it which is stored in a table. Attributes can be any item of a feature which relate to the map, without being a part of it. The attribute data of the object with a geographical connection is stored in tables which can be joined with the geographical data through a common identifier (ID). An ID relevant to animal disease data could be a farm or region. Numbers are to prefer as ID as character variables often can be misspelled. The farms can be visualised using points, and regions such as veterinary districts, municipalities or counties are stored as polygons.
Description of GIS-functions useful in the veterinary surveillance
Recording and reporting disease information
GIS can be used to produce maps of disease incidence, prevalence, mortality, morbidity on farm, region, or national levels. The information is more easily understood when visualised on a map. Because information on diseases often tends to be aggregated (from information on each individual herd to municipality or county level) the information loses some of its value. If the information is mapped at the farm level, only small parts of a region can be visualised at the same time.
Another way to describe the incidences of diseases in a defined area can be to create density maps by using the density function. The density function creates a grid with a defined cell size and gives each cell in the area a density value of the infected farms. To adjust for the underlying population, a density map of the whole population at risk is created with the same cell size. The density maps are then divided to provide a map that shows the incidence of the particular disease in each area unit at the time unit chosen. This function can further provide maps which show the spread of the disease by displaying the maps as a movie. The GIS can also be incorporated in a real time outbreak notification, as done in an eradication program of the Aujeszky’s disease in North Carolina . Maps displaying the updated situation in a region, together with farm information are important tools for field personnel and can also be incorporated in reports to producers, administrators and the media.
Epidemic emergency
In case of an outbreak of an infectious disease, GIS can provide an excellent tool for identifying the location of the case farm and all farms at risk within a specified area of the outbreak. Buffer zones can be drawn around those farms and with a link to tables of the addresses of the farms at risk, the farms can be informed within a short time after a notified outbreak. Buffer zones can also be generated around other risk areas or point sources, such as roads where infected cattle have been driven or around market places. Further, the maps can assist the field veterinarians to plan their work in the current situation, and for the veterinary authorities in how to handle a potential outbreak.
Analysis of clustering of diseases
To analyse whether a disease is clustered in space, time or in time and space other programs still have to be used because this is not yet a standard tool in the available GIS-packages.
The visualisation of the disease rates on digital maps can be misleading because the eye tends to interpret point patterns as clusters more often than what is real. Therefore, a cluster analysis should be carried out for an objective evaluation of the reported disease cases. The results of some of the cluster analyses can, thereafter, be imported into a GIS to visualise the location of clusters or cluster areas.
Model disease spread
Simulation models using programmes packages as @Risk (Palisade Corporation, Newfield, NY, USA) can be integrated within a GIS. Such simulation models can incorporate farm information such as herd size, production type as well as spatial factors like distance to the source of outbreak, population density and climate conditions, vegetation and landscape, all of which have been defined as risk factors for the spread of the modelled disease has developed a model of a potential outbreak of foot and mouth disease in New Zealand.
Planning disease control strategies
The neighbourhood analysis function can be used to identify all adjacent farms to an infected farm. It is a function that identifies all adjacent features with a certain criteria to a particular feature. Contact patterns such as common use of grasslands or sources of purchasing etc. could be visualised with a so-called spider diagram. This could provide insight into the possibility of transmission of infectious diseases between herds. In the planning of eradication of diseases, GIS has the possibility to perform overlay analysis to find high or low risk areas for diseases which depend on geographical features or conditions related to the geography. Studies of trypanosomiasis and theileriosis , are just some examples of how to use GIS to plan eradication of diseases depending on habitats of vectors or wild animal population. GIS could also be used to find areas with a low density of other farms or risk areas of diseases as shown by in case of Echinococcus multilocularis in foxes.
Compiled & Shared by- Team, LITD (Livestock Institute of Training & Development)
Image-Courtesy-Google
Reference-On Request.
