South Dakota is the U.S. hotspot for West Nile disease. Scientists and public health officials there developed a way to use environmental data from NASA satellites to forecast the risk of West Nile. They’re giving people working on preventing the disease an important new tool for protecting the population.
“The Landsat satellites have also proved to be very useful, particularly for trying to do more detailed, finer-scale risk mapping.” — Dr. Michael Wimberly, Landscape Ecologist, South Dakota State University on using satellite imagery to fight West Nile Virus by creating weekly risk assessment maps.
