Abstract: As Mosquito Abatement Districts (MADs) and other agencies tasked with mosquito control are adjusting to new practices due to COVID-19, mainly the issue of hiring and retaining seasonal staff, we wonder if our approach to ground-based, pre-hatch larviciding treatments is of use to our colleagues. Our applied research in summer 2022 used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to help the Northwest MAD (Wheeling, IL, USA) define several appropriate study areas for a robust evaluation of pre-hatch larvicide efficacy in partnership with industry, seasonal employees, and interns in field operations, entomology, and GIS. Through uniform spatial analyses of study areas and the implementation of mobile GIS, we were able to target treatments and surveillance spatially. We also hope to gain insight from AMCA membership on the best practices for rearing larvae from treated sources in comparison to our methods. In addition to product evaluation, we observed benefits to survey practices for cataloging sources and received positive feedback from several residents directly adjacent to the study areas. Our thinking was to help alleviate the resource burdens of responding to “the water” or flooding events, instead target specific areas prior to these events, perhaps prior to the arrival of seasonal staff.
