Analysis of the Arbovirosis Potential Occurrence in Dobrogea, Romania

IrrigTool—A New Tool for Determining the Irrigation Rate Based on Evapotranspiration Estimated by the Thornthwaite Equation

In the context of climate change, irrigation has become a must for ensuring crop production because in some regions, the drought episodes became more frequent. The decision to efficiently allocate water resources should be made quickly, based on tools that provide correct information with a low computational effort. Therefore, we propose a new user-friendly tool—IrrigTool—for assessing the irrigation rate considering the precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, soil type, and crop. IrrigTool implements the Thornthwaite equations and can be used to identify weakness due to drought stress and as an educational tool. Apart from the computation, it provides a graphical representation of the results and possible comparisons of the output for two locations. The application is built in Microsoft Excel for graphics and Visual Basic VBA. The user does not have programming knowledge to use it. Data on monthly precipitation and temperature data must be introduced in the specified fields, and after pressing the run button, the results are automatically displayed. The article exemplifies the functioning on data series from Romania’s Dobrogea region.

Spatial Analysis of Mosquito-Borne Diseases in Europe: A Scoping Review

Mosquito-borne infections are increasing in endemic areas and previously unaffected regions. In 2020, the notification rate for Dengue was 0.5 cases per 100,000 population, and for Chikungunya <0.1/100,000. In 2019, the rate for Malaria was 1.3/100,000, and for West Nile Virus, 0.1/100,000. Spatial analysis is increasingly used in surveillance and epidemiological investigation, but reviews about their use in this research topic are scarce. We identify and describe the methodological approaches used to investigate the distribution and ecological determinants of mosquito-borne infections in Europe. Relevant literature was extracted from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science from inception until October 2021 and analysed according to PRISMA-ScR protocol. We identified 110 studies. Most used geographical correlation analysis (n = 50), mainly applying generalised linear models, and the remaining used spatial cluster detection (n = 30) and disease mapping (n = 30), mainly conducted using frequentist approaches. The most studied infections were Dengue (n = 32), Malaria (n = 26), Chikungunya (n = 26), and West Nile Virus (n = 24), and the most studied ecological determinants were temperature (n = 39), precipitation (n = 24), water bodies (n = 14), and vegetation (n = 11). Results from this review may support public health programs for mosquito-borne disease prevention and may help guide future research, as we recommended various good practices for spatial epidemiological studies.