Table 2.

Policy areas where ecosystem perspectives could assist in reducing zoonotic disease risk driven by climate change

Policy sector	Ecological contributions to policy	Examples of ecosystem based approaches to managing zoonotic risks
Urban planning	Understanding the ecology of urban adapted reservoir/vector species (eg, brown rat, Aedes aegypti) can inform better design of housing and sanitation to exclude them—eg, improving water drainage, food, and water storage and waste management to reduce vector breeding sites and food for rats	Future urban planning could aim for co-benefits of climate adaptation and disease reduction. Increasing the density of drainage networks and the provision of piped water can mitigate increased flooding and water shortage risks while also reducing reservoir or vector habitat. Green spaces can help to reduce urban heat island effects, which would otherwise provide warmer microclimates for vector breeding, and reduce heat stress for people
Agricultural (arable)	Evaluating how animal reservoir or vector populations respond to expansions of agriculture and to climate changes in human managed landscapes can identify high risk emerging interfaces for zoonotic transmission	Agricultural landscapes and practices could be designed to naturally regulate populations of synanthropic reservoir hosts (eg, rodents) or vectors, reduce pathogen or parasite transmission (eg, by reducing standing water), and regulate local microclimates. This could also help to benefit food security by reducing crop losses
Agricultural (pastoral)	Climate and land use change will influence occurrence and abundance of reservoir and vector species that can transmit pathogens to livestock and people, as well as influencing environmental suitability for livestock husbandry. Understanding how these interfaces will change can identify high risk areas for future outbreaks	Adopting methods from higher yield farming systems could enable more efficient use of land and reduce human-wildlife-livestock interfaces. Agricultural landscapes can be designed to reduce contact between livestock and wildlife reservoir species (eg, bat hosts of henipaviruses), lowering risks of livestock epizootics and spillover to humans
Public health and clinical planning	Early warning surveillance systems (eg, monitoring sentinel wildlife populations) or mapping and forecast models of reservoir populations, can inform targeted prevention and outbreak response for specific zoonoses	Modeling approaches can evaluate how future climate and land change scenarios may affect geographic trends in zoonotic hazard for multiple zoonoses. The outcomes from these models can inform targeted strengthening of national health systems and health information management, as well as long term planning for prevention and response
Habitat loss and degradation	Understanding and mapping habitat use by known or predicted hosts of priority pathogens (eg, betacoronaviruses, filoviruses), under present and future environmental conditions, can identify regions that may pose a high hazard of zoonotic emergence and outbreaks	Much deforestation and agricultural expansion is driven by upstream factors, including global trade. Identifying and addressing upstream drivers could reduce human exposure risks to emerging zoonoses while preserving biodiversity and other ecosystem functions
Wildlife trade and hunting	People hunting and trading in wild animal species can increase risks of exposure to zoonotic pathogens. Understanding and mitigating the environmental drivers (eg, climate, land use) that increase pathogen prevalence in reservoir species could help to reduce hazards. Policy interventions to protect species could in some cases reduce exposures	Hunting and wildlife trade are often driven by nutritional and financial needs, and bans would not eliminate these needs. Investment to increase opportunities for profitable alternative livelihoods that are resilient to future climate change could reduce reliance on wild animal products while benefiting food security and biodiversity conservation