1.3.2Active indicatorWater-borne diseases
1.1Heat and health
1.2Health and extreme weather-related events
1.3Climate suitability for infectious disease transmission
Indicator 1.3.2 · Hazards
Water-borne diseases
Pathogenic Vibrio bacteria can cause gastroenteritis, wound infections, and sepsis posing important risks to health in coastal populations. Rising sea-surface temperatures and changes in salinity can increase the environmental suitability for these bacteria in coastal waters. This indicator tracks changes in the length of coastline with conditions suitable for pathogenic Vibrio and estimated cases of vibriosis.
Headline finding
In 2025, a record-high 92,672km of coastline was environmentally suitable for Vibrio transmission, a 20% increase compared to the 2006-15 annual average
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Figure 1
Climate Suitability for the Transmission of Vibrio
Total coastline suitable for Vibrio transmission, estimated population at risk, accumulated days of risk, and estimated vibriosis cases from 1982 to 2025, shown globally and by country, WHO region, Lancet Countdown region, and HDI group.
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About this indicator
Description
This indicator focuses on mapping environmental suitability for pathogenic Vibrio spp. in coastal zones globally, defined as areas within 10km of the coastline. The indicator uses thresholds of >18°C for Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and <28 PSU for Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) as suitable for Vibrio.
Data downloads
Caveats
The results are derived on the basis of suitable values for only two environmental factors, sea-surface temperature and salinity conditions, and do not consider other potentially important drivers (e.g., globalisation), environmental predictors of pathogenic Vibrio infections (e.g., cholorphyll-a, turbidity) or reported disease case data.
This indicator was last updated in September 2026
Data sources
- Sea surface temperature (SST): ESA Climate Change Initiative Level-4 GHRSST OSTIA dataset (ESACCI-L4_GHRSST-SSTdepth-OSTIA-GLOB_CDR2), daily, 1982–present.
- Sea surface salinity (SSS): (1) ORAS5 ocean reanalysis, monthly, 1982–1992. (2) CMEMS global ocean physical reanalysis (cmems_mod_glo_phy_my_0.083deg_P1D-m), daily, 1993–2025.
- Coastline length: National coastline lengths from WRI, derived from a globally consistent representation of the World Vector Shoreline at approximately 1:250,000 scale. These values are used to convert relative percentages of affected coastline into absolute lengths (km).
- Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4), CIESIN (Columbia University), 30 arc-second (~1 km) spatial resolution; used to estimate population potentially exposed to Vibrio suitability within 100 km of suitable coastal areas.