Land Use Change and Coronavirus Emergence Risk

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) causing coronaviruses are mostly discovered in Asian horseshoe bats. It is still unclear how ongoing land use changes may facilitate SARS-related coronavirus transmission to humans. Here we use a multivariate hotspot analysis of high-resolution land-use data to show that regions of China populated by horseshoe bats are hotspots of forest fragmentation, livestock and human density. We also identify areas susceptible to new hotspot emergence in response to moderate expansion of urbanization, livestock production, or forest disturbance, thereby highlighting regions vulnerable to SARS-CoV spillover under future land-use change. In China population growth and increasing meat consumption associated with urbanization and economic development have expanded the footprint of agriculture, leading to human encroachment in wildlife habitat and increased livestock density in areas adjacent to fragmented forests. The reduced distance between horseshoe-bats and humans elevates the risk for SARS-related coronavirus transmission to humans.Sentence summarizing manuscriptWildlife reservoirs for SARS-coronavirus-2 live in global hotspots of forest fragmentation, livestock, and human density in China

A tool for rapid assessment of wildlife markets in the Asia-Pacific Region for risk of future zoonotic disease outbreaks

“…Forest fragmentation, degradation, and loss have been associated with emerging infectious zoonoses with potential to cause epidemics and pandemics [ 3 , 4 , 31 , 34 , 36 , 43 , 44 ]. Hunting for local consumption has been a long-time practice among rural communities that live in and around the forests.…”

“…Loss, fragmentation, and degradation of tropical forests are significant drivers of emerging infectious diseases [ [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] ]. Forest clearing and settlement exposes loggers, hunters, and settlers to novel zoonotic pathogens [ 4 ].…”

Surface representation impacts on turbulent heat fluxes in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (v.4.1.3)

“…The consequences of these alterations are difficult to predict due to the non-linearity of the numerous connected processes (Pielke et al, 1999). On the one hand, changes in habitat alter food chains and impact vegetal and animal species (Auffret et al, 2018), but also smaller organisms living within them or in equilibrated soil, such as bacteria and viruses (Jeffery and Van der Putten, 2011;Blackburn et al, 2007;Rulli et al, 2020). On the other hand, radiative and texture properties of the surface are also modified: changes in albedo (Loarie et al, 2011), emissivity, thermal properties of the soil (Luyssaert et al, 2014), and surface roughness (Bonan et al, 2018).…”

“…All these changes in the surface energy balance have direct or indirect feedbacks on the planetary boundary layer (PBL) development (Combe et al, 2015), cloud formation (Vilà-Guerau De Arellano et al, 2012), atmospheric temperatures (Koster et al, 2006;Christidis et al, 2013), and rainfall (Koster et al, 2003). This may impact surface characteristics and vegetation activity again, and in the long term it will restart the whole cycle by changing species (vegetation included), which need to adapt to the modified environmental conditions (Pielke et al, 1998), with the direct or indirect associated impacts on the first triggers: the humans (Meyer and Turner, 1994;Rulli et al, 2020).…”

“…Since LC change decisions are typically made by local and regional governments (e.g. Sánchez-Cuervo et al, 2012), it is of utmost importance that these organizations understand the direct and indirect implications of various anthropogenic Earth surface modifications. Hence, it is crucial to quantify the uncertainty associated with land surface representation in weather and climate models, which is the main objective of this paper.…”