water Article Analysis of the Arbovirosis Potential Occurrence in Dobrogea, Romania Carmen Maftei 1, * , Alina Bărbulescu 1, * , Sorin Rugina 2 , Cristian Dorin Nastac 1 and Irina Magdalena Dumitru 2   Citation: Maftei, C.; B ˘ arbulescu, A.; Rugina, S.; Nastac, C.D.; Dumitru, I.M. Analysis of the Arbovirosis Potential Occurrence in Dobrogea, Romania. Water 2021, 13, 374. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13030374 Academic Editor: Guy Howard Received: 5 December 2020 Accepted: 27 January 2021 Published: 31 January 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transilvania University of Bras , ov, 5, Turnului Str., 500152 Bras , ov, Romania; ndcproiect@gmail.com 2 Faculty of Medicine, Ovidius University of Constanta, 124, Mamaia Av., 900527 Constanta, Romania; sorinrugina@yahoo.com (S.R.); dumitrui@hotmail.com (I.M.D.) * Correspondence: cemaftei@gmail.com (C.M.); alinadumitriu@yahoo.com (A.B.) Abstract: Climate change creates new challenges for preventing and protecting human health against different diseases that could appear and propagate. The Aedes albopictus mosquito species is an important vector for different diseases like dengue fever or zika. Although this species is not “indigenous” in Europe, its presence is noticed in many countries on the continent. The Ae. albopictus establishment is conditioned by the species’ characteristics and environmental factors. To assess the possible spread of Ae. albopictus in the Dobrogea region (situated in the Southeast of Romania), we conducted the following analysis: (1) Investigation of the current distribution and climatic factors favoring Ae. albopictus’ establishment in Europe; (2) Analysis of climate dynamics in Dobrogea in terms of the parameters identified at stage (1); (3) Testing the hypothesis that the climate from Dobrogea favors Ae. albopictus’ establishment in the region; (4) Building a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based model of the potential geographic distribution of Ae. albopictus in Dobrogea. Results show that the climate of Dobrogea favors the apparition of the investigated species and its proliferation. Keywords: hydro-climate factors; statistical analysis; GIS analysis; arbovirosis 1. Introduction During the last years, weather and climate changes have a notable impact on human health [1–4]. According to the CDC data recently published, climate change has led to an augmentation of the incidence of emerging and re-emerging diseases, out of which vector-borne, food- and water-borne disease are the most important [5]. According to the WHO [6], vector-borne diseases (whose most common vectors are mosquitos) account for more than 17% of all infectious illnesses, causing more than 700,000 deaths annually. Globally, 146 (58.4%) countries/territories reported at least one arboviral disease, while 123 (49.2%) reported more than one arboviral disease, in many cases, local outbreaks [7–9]. For instance, dengue fever (caused by mosquito bites, like Ae. albopictus (Skuse, 1895)) is common in many countries from tropical and subtropical areas. The Invasive Species Specialist Group considers that Ae. albopictus is one of the worst 100 invasive species due to its adaptability [10,11]. Thus it comes as no surprise that autochthonous dengue cases were documented in southern France in 2010, 2013, 2014, and 2015 [12–14]. In Spain, the first local outbreak of Dengue was registered in 2018. The second one was reported in September 2019, when the local health authorities announced a laboratory-confirmed autochthonous dengue case in Barcelona. The presence of Ae. albopictus in the same country has been reported since 2004 [15]. Autochthonous dengue cases have been reported in Europe (Croatia, France, Madeira Islands) and the United States (Hawaii, Florida, and Texas) [12,13], as well. The number of imported cases has also increased in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Water 2021, 13, 374. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13030374 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/water