A Data Driven Approach for Analyzing the Effect of Climate Change on Mosquito Abundance in Europe

Abstract

Mosquito-borne diseases have been spreading across Europe over the past two decades, with climate change contributing to this spread. Temperature and precipitation are key factors in a mosquito’s life cycle, and are greatly affected by climate change. Using a machine learning framework, Earth Observation data, and future climate projections of temperature and precipitation, this work studies three different cases (Veneto region in Italy, Upper Rhine Valley in Germany and Pancevo, Serbia) and focuses on (i) evaluating the impact of climate factors on mosquito abundance and (ii) long-term forecasting of mosquito abundance based on EURO-CORDEX future climate projections under different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios. The study shows that increases in precipitation and temperature are directly linked to increased mosquito abundance, with temperature being the main driving factor. Additionally, as the climatic conditions become more extreme, meaning higher variance, the mosquito abundance increases. Moreover, we show that in the upcoming decades mosquito abundance is expected to increase. In the worst-case scenario (RCP8.5) Serbia will face a 10% increase, Italy around a 40% increase, and Germany will reach almost a 200% increase by 2100, relative to the decade 2010–2020. However, in terms of absolute numbers both in Italy and Germany, the expected increase is similar. An interesting finding is that either strong (RCP2.6) or moderate mitigation actions (RCP4.5) against greenhouse gas concentration lead to similar levels of future mosquito abundance, as opposed to no mitigation action at all (RCP8.5), which is projected to lead to high mosquito abundance for all cases studied.