The #MosquitoAlertBCN project team has developed the first daily map that predicts the risk of finding a tiger mosquito in Barcelona . It is a digital map, unique in the world, that reports in real time and on a 20-meter scale about the likelihood of a mosquito and a person meeting or interacting that day.
In 2020, Mosquito Alert has recorded twice as many tiger mosquitoes as in 2019. It has been the year with the most mosquitoes since 2014, when the citizen science platform began collecting data.
The number of tiger mosquito sightings reported via the Mosquito Alert app in the first half of 2020 is 70% higher than in 2018, which was, until now, the year with the most early-season sightings of the insect. However, 2015 still holds the record for the greatest number of tiger mosquito sightings over a full season.
The MosquitoAlertBCN project has been one of the research initiatives selected by the Pla Barcelona Ciència. It is a project led by CREAF, with the participation of UPF and IRIDEON and the collaboration of the ASPB. The Pla Barcelona Ciència has the support of the Barcelona City Council and the “la Caixa” Bank Foundation.
The Big Mosquito Bytes project has been awarded a million euros by the “la Caixa” Banking Foundation. The project will combine citizen science and other massive data sources to develop innovative models that allow predicting the risk of epidemics, as well as visualizing this risk in real time. In the project led by CEAB-CSIC, scientists from UPF, the Max Planck Institute for Demography, the National Center for Epidemiology of ISPCIII and CREAF participate, and it draws heavily on the Mosquito Alert citizen science platform.
Acoording to a study published in Nature Communications citizen science has allowed the researchers to cover much more geographic space in comparison to traditional methods, reducing the economic cost of the two-year study eight-fold.
Initiative Empowers National Networks, Stakeholders and Governments to Generate and Access Real-time Data and Tools through UN Electronic Platform ‘Environment Live”.
Citizen Science is increasingly gaining importance, and that is why, on September 7, various projects related to it were presented in the European Parliament. Among them, Mosquito Alert appeared and its impact on Spain.
The BaixLlobregat Mosquito Control Service is carrying out vehicle searches in coordination with the Mossos de Esquadra (Catalonian National Police) as part of the Atrapaeltigre.com project led by a team from CEAB-CSIC and CREAF. According to 2014 citizen data collected using the app Tigatrapp, this summer Spanish may have transported as many 800,000 tiger mosquitos in their vehicles.
AtrapaelTigre.com is a citizen science project promoting active collaboration of citizens by way of its app, Tigatrapp. The initiative originated in Catalonia and is capable of managing information from thousands of tiger mosquito breeding sites.
