Spatiotemporal change and ecological modelling of malaria in Turkey by means of geographic information systems

We described the spatiotemporal change of malaria (Plasmodium vivax) in Turkey over 34 years (1975-2008), and assessed the role of environmental variables in this change. We developed seven 5-year-period raster maps by using geo-referenced malaria case data from the centres of 81 provinces and the kriging method with a spherical variogram model in a geographic information systems (GIS) model. We also modelled malaria incidence in GIS by using our average malaria incidence raster map, and complementary spatial database including the raster map layers of 14 environmental variables. We chose linear regression analysis with backward method to investigate relationships among variables and develop a model. The model was run in GIS to obtain a model incidence raster map. We tested the reliability of the model map by residual statistics, and found the model map dependable. Five-year-period maps revealed that the distribution of malaria cases moved from the East Mediterranean region to the Southeast Anatolia region due to changing human activities. The latitude, minimum temperature, distance to seas and elevation variables were found to have significant impacts on malaria. Consequently, the model incidence map established a good background for early warning systems to predict epidemics of malaria following environmental changes.