A low-cost environmental monitoring framework for climate-sensitive disease surveillance in the Peruvian Amazon

Abstract

Abstract Malaria, dengue and leptospirosis are endemic in the Peruvian Amazon, where routine surveillance operates without village-scale environmental observation. We report the yield of that monitoring framework, the completeness of its meteorological record, and its cost, operated at village scale alongside notifiable disease surveillance. Across ten villages along the Iquitos–Nauta Highway, we operated drones, automatic weather stations, low-cost particulate monitors and acoustic recorders, inspected terrain and geolocated cases. Co-creation with the regional health directorate and villages governed deployment and data handling. Streams were harmonized into a spatial database at daily to annual resolution. Nine quarterly campaigns between March 2023 and March 2026 covered 14 flight areas, 14 km 2 per round, and produced 756 orthomosaics from 1.16 million images. Sensors returned 678,564 meteorological and 2,778,363 air-quality records and 4349.75 h of audio. Completely missing outdoor-temperature weeks ranged from 5.1 to 61.4% across sites. Of 10,883 notified individuals, 1489 (13.7%) were georeferenced, with coverage of 8.3% in 2010–2015 and 31.1% in 2021–2025. Capital outlay was about USD 22,050, each campaign about USD 3660. The harmonized series is intended to inform vector control and case detection for local health authorities and stakeholders.