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. 2024 Dec 11:14:103102.
doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2024.103102. eCollection 2025 Jun.

Effects of mosquito-proofing storm drains on adult and larvae mosquito abundance: Protocol of the IDAlErt storm drAin randomiSed controlled trial (IDEAS)

Marina Treskova  1   2   3 , Tomás Montalvo  4   5   6 , Joacim Rocklöv  1   2   3 , Charles Hatfield  1   7 , Frederic Bartumeus  8   9   10 , Shouro Dasgupta  11   12 , João Encarnação  13 , Rachel Lowe  9   14   15 , Jan C Semenza  1   2   3 , Pascale Stiles  1 , Jordi Noya  6 , Andrea Valsecchi  4 , Till Bärnighausen  1 , John R B Palmer  16 , Aditi Bunker  1
Affiliations

Effects of mosquito-proofing storm drains on adult and larvae mosquito abundance: Protocol of the IDAlErt storm drAin randomiSed controlled trial (IDEAS)

Marina Treskova et al. MethodsX. .

Abstract

Aedes and Culex mosquitoes, known for spreading arboviruses like dengue and West Nile, thrive in cities, posing health risks to urban populations. Climate change can create suitable climatic conditions for these vectors to spread further in Europe. Cities contain numerous landscape and infrastructure elements, such as storm drains, that allow stagnant water build-up facilitating mosquito breeding. Modifying urban infrastructure to prevent water accumulation can reduce mosquito populations, but evidence is limited. The Public Health Agency of Barcelona, Spain, introduced a structural modification of storm drains to prevent water accumulation. Together with the Agency, we designed a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to experimentally assess the effectiveness of these modifications on adult Aedes albopictus and Culex pipiens populations. It is a parallel-arm RCT with equal randomization of 44 drains to receive mosquito-proofing modifications (intervention) or not (control). Primary outcomes are adult mosquito counts and secondary outcomes are larvae and mosquito presence, assessed weekly at each drain until no mosquitoes are detected. Data analyses include generalised linear mixed models to estimate the time-averaged and highest intervention effects, subgroup and sensitivity analyses. The trial results will guide a city-wide expansion of the storm drain modifications and provide valuable evidence to enhance existing vector control measures.

Keywords: Adaptation; Aedes; Climate change; Culex; Mosquito intervention; Urban infrastructure; Vector-borne.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Image, graphical abstract
Graphical abstract
Fig 1
Fig. 1
The flow chart of the IDAlErt storm drAin randomiSed controlled trial (IDEAS) in Barcelona, Spain.
Fig 2:
Fig. 2
The red dots depict the location of storm drains eligible for sampling based on activity. The yellow rings encompassing the red dots represent the drains (n = 44) we selected for IDEAS. The source of the base map in grey is from “Ground uses of the city of Barcelona”, CC BY 4.0, Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2016, available at https://opendata-ajuntament.barcelona.cat/data/en/dataset/mapa-usos-sol-wms).
Fig 3:
Fig. 3
Panel a) depicts an unmodified storm drain with stagnant water, and panel b) depicts a modified storm drain. Source: We obtained photos from [17] with permission for re-use.
Fig 4:
Fig. 4
Photo of the ASPB field technician with an entomological aspirator. Photo by Chloe Chavardes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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