Water Management, Sanitation, and Mosquito Population Control

Resource management and sustainable integrated water management are crucial elements that affect mosquito breeding and control. Some favorable places for mosquito breeding are natural and artificial containers such as concrete or plastic tanks, pots, discarded tires, and drums. In addition, the quality of the water in these containers plays a crucial role when it comes to the productivity of the breeding habitats. Inadequate sanitation, infrastructural limitations, as well as changing environmental conditions, promote the breeding of mosquitos, thus affecting the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases. One significant step to control mosquito breeding is undoubtedly integrating sustainable water management with better sanitation and developed infrastructure. For this purpose, we are investigating the water management practices of the cities in Brazil as well as in Turkey from an environmental engineering perspective, and preparing suitable water management practices based on current mosquito breeding data and/or modeled mosquito populations.

Community engagement plays a significant role to control and increase community sanitation conditions. It can be said that the deficiencies in the provision of sanitation services may be related to the incidence and prevalence of vector-borne diseases. To control sanitation on a community basis, engagement with the public is crucial. For this purpose, data is collected from questionnaires focused on community perception of risks, mosquito hotspots, and household water and sanitation practices and conditions. The sanitary survey will support the spot of any faults and deficiencies of the water and sanitation systems that could enhance breeding sites. The development of improved and preventative measures for urban water infrastructure and community water sanitation, as well as targeted community-level educational campaigns, is a part of this working group. The work done in this part will contribute to the development of the early warning tool system.

In this part of the work package, we aim to use an interdisciplinary mixed method (i.e., quantitative and qualitative) approach to ascertain which collection of domestic and sociodemographic risk factors, particularly related to environmental levels of hygiene and water sanitation, are associated with mosquito infestation in Brazilian homes.

Researchers in this group:

• Professor Orhan Yenigun
• Dr Luiza C. Campos
• Dr. Merve Tunali
• Dr. Alexandro Radin
• Selma Basibuyuk