Updated 02/09/21

January 2018 – 2022

Zimbabwe

Presentation

The TEMPO project aims at modelling, using multi-source Earth Observation data, the use of landscape by domestic and wildlife animal populations to better characterize the contacts and their determinants and to estimate the risk of pathogen transmission.

Kudu in Kruger national Park, South Africa.

© IRD/CNRS - Cécile Bégard

The scientists propose to take as a model the contacts between domestic and wild herbivores on the periphery of protected areas in southern Africa, a region of the world with many national parks and where animal movements between natural and anthropic habitats are frequently observed in both directions. Two diseases will be studied: foot-and-mouth disease and Rift Valley fever.

The TEMPO project will be based on telemetry data, surveys and epidemiology data already available, and will focus on the development of innovative spatial modeling methods for the simulation of animal mobility. The main methodological challenges that will be addressed are the assimilation of Earth Observation multi-sensor data in the models, and the modeling of mobility at different spatial scales.

The project is structured in three parts:

  • Use of remote sensing to characterize and monitor the environmental determinants of space occupation, movements of and contacts between wildlife and domestic animals
  • Modeling the dynamics of land use taking into account these environmental determinants
  • Modeling the transmission of pathogens between wild and domestic animal populations.

Eve Miguel (IRD) and Alexandre Caron (Cirad), health ecologists, try to download the GPS data from collars installed on buffalos.

© Michel de Garine-Wichatitski

Study sites

The TEMPO study areas were selected based on the availability of telemetry and epidemiology data.

These are areas in Zimbabwe located at the periphery of three national parks: Hwange, Gonarezhou and Kruger (Great Limpopo et Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Areas). The boundaries between protected areas and communal areas in Zimbabwe are often permeable (ie river, rail or road) and fence free. Animal movements between natural and anthropogenic compartments are frequently observed in both directions. Finally, the density of large predators and the anthropogenic pressure at the boundaries of these three sites are variable.

An additional site in an interface area in Mozambique (Great Limpopo TFCA) will be mapped to test the interoperability of the animal mobility model.

 

Partners

Cirad:

IRD:

Scientific coordination:

  • Annelise TRAN, Cirad, UMR TETIS, UMR ASTRE
  • Eve Miguel IRD, UMR MIVEGEC

 

Funding

Montpellier University of Excellence