Exploring Relationships Between Vector-Borne Diseases and Landscape Architecture: Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus and Landscape Architecture

Abstract

Over half of the world’s population is at risk of contracting vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue The burden on global health has pandemic proportions, over 1 billion cases, and 1 million deaths annually. With dengue alone, more than 2.5 billion people in over 100 countries are at risk of exposure (WHO 2016). Climate change, rapid urbanization, globalization, and poverty are intensifying and expanding vector habitats now more than ever (Knudsen 1995). In recent years, health practitioners have begun to acknowledge that the built and designed environment, including urban ecological systems, has a significant role in preventive medicine and mitigation of urban diseases (Dannenberg, Frumkin, and Jackson 2011). Urban design, human behavior, ecological conditions and social context are just a few of the many social determinants of vector-borne diseases as well as other infectious diseases of poverty (McCarthy 2000). Although the field of landscape architecture is poised to address many of these determinants, it has not yet explored its potential to address the vector-borne disease pandemic. This thesis focuses on the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, the most lethal vectors for humans (WHO 2016). Both species carry dozens of pathogens including dengue, yellow fever, zika, chikungunya, and others. A large body of existing evidence demonstrates that the built environments, specifically urban landscapes, can either exacerbate or mitigate A. aegypti and A. Albopictus expansion in cities. Such mitigation or exacerbation depends in large part on design considerations and socio-cultural approaches to the design process. Evidence available to guide the practice of landscape architects and other disciplines of the built environments is dispersed across disciplines and has not been compiled and analyzed from a designer’s perspective. This thesis collects, organizes and reflects on the findings that medicine, entomology, ecology and other fields have developed on the topic A. aegypti and A. albopictus and their relationship with the built environments, with a specific focus on the research and practice of landscape architecture. The outcomes are: 1) A body of evidence organized using a landscape architectural framework in order to identify and study the relationships between the urban landscape and A. aegypti and A. albopictus. 2) A graphic representation of those relationships summarizes in the “Relationships Map of Urban Landscape and Aedes Aegypti and Albopictus” 3) A list of gaps that are reflections and questions, from a landscape architectural perspective, that emerged from reviewing the literature. Most of this questions may not have an answer yet and could be topics for future research. 4) A list of recommendations for designers of the built environments, emphasizing landscape architectural aspects summarize in the “Design Guidelines for A. aegypti and A. albopictus. Control”