Wetlands as sites of exposure to water-borne infectious diseases

Abstract

Wetlands provide many essential and important ecosystem services to humans, resulting in our considerable reliance on and exposure to various wetland environments. A subset of microorganisms and invertebrates commonly found in wetlands can cause diseases in humans, some of which are responsible for significant disease burden globally. As past disease outbreaks and emergence arising from wetlands have shown, the combination of predicted intensification of extreme weather events, human needs for land and natural resources, and biodiversity loss in the future are likely to drive the transmission of infectious diseases, resulting in an increasing burden of water-borne diseases, particularly where sanitation infrastructure is poor. The importance of preventing contamination, providing adequate sanitation and preserving or restoring healthy, service-providing ecosystems as strategies for risk mitigation are therefore underlined. A greater understanding of the complexities of wetland ecosystems and the interlinked environmental, microbiological and human factors that lead to infection risk should therefore be an objective of future research.