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Scientific evidence is consistent: global environmental change is occurring faster than anticipated, and the global spotlight is falling on human activities as a possible cause.
Climate change, especially global warming, results in environmental and ecological changes that affect socio-economic systems. One of the most devastating of these is likely to be the effect of climate change on human health. Extreme weather events present immediate health disasters, but subtle changes to the climate may lead to gradual adverse health effects which are less easily quantified and understood.
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| Rhipicephalus appendicualtus commonly known as the Brown Ear Tick |
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| Malaria cells |
Potential adverse health issues and effects include a rise in sea level, drowning, water and soil salinization, food and water supply shortages, food-borne infections, malnutrition, vector-borne diseases, mass population movements, heat stress, environmental refugees, mental health issues and respiratory disease. These could result from extreme weather events and increased air pollution concentrations - climate change may alter exposure to air pollution by affecting the weather and emissions.
These effects will not be experienced proportionately around the world - vulnerable populations will be most at risk.
What are the current gaps in our knowledge?
- Health status, heat extremes and mortality
- Environmental refugees and potential conflict
- Urbanization and/ or population increase and associated social problems
- Impacts of mitigation and adaptation strategies on human health, especially long-term effects
- Strengthening of the public health systems to better cope with the excess burden of disease associated with climate change
- Multidisciplinary research and models
- Climate change, agriculture and malnutrition impacts on vulnerable communities
- Climate change, air quality and impacts on morbidity and mortality rates
- Guidelines (with specific tasks and actions) for local government to best protect communities from the adverse health effects of climate change
Case Study: Malaria in SA's Limpopo Province
The objectives of this case study were to:
- Collate data recorded from malaria cases in Limpopo over a 10-year period
- Collate climate change/ variability and other environmental data/ information for the same period
- Perform timeline assessments of malaria incidences with climate/ environmental data
- Identify and map malaria risk areas/ populations in terms of climatic/ environmental factors at provincial/ district/ municipal levels using current climate
- Model the current malaria/ climate relationship and provide future malaria risk maps for South Africa
Potential climate change problems include:
- Limited knowledge in communities of the relationship between climate change and malaria;
- Shortage of long-term data on the incidence of malaria (to cover at least 30 years);
- Lack of a consistent, comprehensive and relatively accurate model built on local conditions that incorporates numerous factors in addition to climate variability and change, and
- Low socio-economic and awareness level, hence climate change is not given the priority status it needs.
Questions to answer when using the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas:
- How will a changing climate in South Africa affect the incidence and distribution patterns of malaria?
- How will we provide for optimal modelling of such effects while ensuring that we can differentiate between climate change and other important factors?
- What data already exist in the country that can be used as a base for further studies?
To be able to solve current and future adaptation problems, we also need to know more about human behavioural patterns, new technologies, socio-economic information such as habitat and livelihoods, etc. Data and information collated in the Atlas will be applied to existing models to evaluate current situations, but also to predict for the future under changing climatic conditions.
By Dr Caradee Wright & Dr Jane Olwoch
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