Elfatih Eltahir

Dr. Elfatih Eltahir, professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. Dr. Eltahir earned a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Khartoum in Sudan in 1985; an M.S. in hydrology from the  National  University  of  Ireland  in  1988;  and  the  S.M.  in  meteorology  and  the  Sc.D.  in hydroclimatology,  both  from  MIT  in  1993.    Dr.  Eltahir’s  research  focuses  on  the  regional climate and  hydrology  of  tropical  regions.  He  developed  a  theory  for  how  regional-scale  vegetation distribution  shapes  the  dynamics  of  monsoons,  and  studied  the  impact  of  deforestation  on  the hydrology  and  climate  of  the  Amazon  and  West  Africa. He  explored  the  connections  between natural variability in the Nile flow and the El Nino phenomenon, and demonstrated the potential for using such connections to improve predictability of the Nile floods. His recent work focuses on the connections of water and disease in Africa. 

Climate, Water, and Public Health in Africa

The connections between climate, water, and disease will be explored using the example of malaria transmission in a couple of villages in the Sahel region of West Africa. Field observations provide evidence for a strong relationship between climate variability and malaria transmission in Africa. A detailed network of observations covering two villages will be reviewed and discussed to illustrate the mechanistic relationship between rainfall occurrence and mosquito population dynamics at the village scale. The role of numerical models as tools for prediction of the impact of climate change on malaria transmission will be discussed.