Research | Avia-GIS

Testimonials

Our research topics

Our experts are specialised in environmental engineering, biology, entomology, spatial epidemiology, meteorology, spatial modelling and ICT. We focus on the development of approaches that reduce the cost of spatial sampling and increase the knowledge that can be extracted from data. Our core is understanding the spatial distribution of emerging vector-borne diseases and are now expanding this to new domains in urban- and agricultural pest management.

Research projects

The main objective of our research is to contribute to the state of the art as a means to bridge the gap between research and decision making. We initiate or are partner in national and international multidisciplinary research projects and networks. In addition to project management we offer to:

Conduct research and provide support within our field of expertise
Provide tailored eco-climatic data sets
Develop web-based decision support systems and databases
Provide training on GIS, spatial sampling strategies and spatial modelling

Our main research funding channels are:

The Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), examples include:

ALIEN-ALERT: Horizon scanning for new pests and invasive species in Belgium.
EPIDEMOIST: Improving epidemiological modelling using satellite derived soil moisture proxies.
Epi-STIS: Remote Sensing tools to study the epidemiology and Space/time dynamics of diseases.
MODIRISK: Mosquito vectors of disease: spatial biodiversity, drivers of change, and risk in Belgium.
RANGELAND: Remote sensing to evaluate the impact of grazing on the environment.
SATHELI: Identification of the spatial-temporal dynamics of vector habitat landscape features using UAV.

The European Commission (EC), examples include:

EDEN (FP6): Emerging diseases in a changing European environment.
EDENext (FP7): Biology and control of vector-borne infections in Europe.
GLOWORM (FP7): Innovative and Sustainable Strategies to Mitigate the Impact of Global Change on Helminth Infections in Ruminants.
ICONZ (FP7): Integrated control of neglected zoonoses: improving human health and animal production through scientific innovation and public engagement.
VMERGE (FP7): Emerging viral vector-borne diseases.

Federal Public Service / Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment (FPS), examples include:

MosqInVBE: Guidelines for the surveillance of exotic mosquitoes in Belgium.
VENTOMO: Study of the aerial distribution of Culicoides in the lower troposphere to improve wind dispersion models.

Flanders Innovation and Entrepreneurship (VLAIO), examples include:

MOSQDYN: Optimised methods for precision pest surveillance and control of vectors of disease.

Welcome Trust, examples include:

FRAGFLY: Environmental changes in Africa and tsetse habitat fragmentation: epidemiological consequences and perspectives for control.

Research networks

We strongly believe that networking is key to success. We therefore run or are part of networks that make the difference. We were coordinating for a decade VBORNET and VECTORNET and are now a partner in VECTORNET-follow-on network. These networks, funded by ECDC and EFSA, were the first pan-European networks focussing on collecting and publishing all available data on vector distributions in Europe. Mainly the regularly updated maps of invasive mosquitoes in Europe are now considered a global standard.

Research papers

Research is useless if results are not shared or published. Whilst our focus is on contributing to the state of the art through the development of spatial decision support systems that bridge the gap between research and decision making, we also publish our findings as lead- or co-author in peer reviewed research journals.
Since the establishment of the company we published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and over the past 5 years we published on average 15 papers per year.