Mosquito Habitat Observations and Wildfire Hazard in Florida

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  Florida Hazards - Mosquitos and Wildfires

Inspiration

Florida communities face two distinct natural hazards, wildfires and mosquito-borne disease, that are driven by opposite environmental conditions. Moisture sustains mosquito breeding habitat while drying creates wildfire fuel. We wanted to know: do these hazards occupy separate landscapes, or do they overlap in ways communities need to prepare for?

What it does

The project overlays GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper observations with MTBS wildfire perimeters across Florida (2018–2024) to reveal where these two hazards co-occur spatially. The resulting map makes it immediately visible which areas face one hazard or the other, and where there are a few pockets that face both, but it would be interesting to do more research into the data to see if some of those mosquito habitat sightings came after a fire, not before.

How we built it

We initially went straight to GLOBE data at geospatial.strategies.org for the Moquito Habitat Mapper data and to MTSB for the wildfire data. After exploring and determining this was the right data we wanted to use, we pulled both datasets through ArcGIS Online and the Living Atlas, specifically GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper citizen science observations and MTBS (Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity) wildfire data, and layered them together in ArcGIS Pro over Florida's geography for the 2018–2024 timeframe.

Challenges we ran into

Main challenge was the large file sizes that crashed Philippa's computer but that those same files could also be found in ArcGIS Online and Living Atlas was overall much easier to work with and less taxing on computer storage capacity.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We built a clear, dual-hazard spatial comparison using two open federal datasets in a single hackathon session. The map tells a straightforward story: fire and mosquito habitat largely occupy different landscapes in Florida, but the overlap zones are where the real community risk lives.

What we learned

The moisture dichotomy is real. Fire and mosquito habitat are largely spatially separated. But the few places where they do overlap, could be post-fire and that could be a secondary investigation.

What's next for Mosquito Habitat Observations and Wildfire Hazard in Florida

Philippa submitting this map to the Women in GIS Contest with potential for Esri UC display. This project also seems like it would be better suited as an InstantApp so that the feature points on the maps can be interacted with and deliver more detail to the user as well as the ability to have greater zooming capabilities to inspect varies areas of the state and their environmental factors favoring or detering over hazard over the other.

Built With

• arcgispro
• chatgpt
• claude
• globe
• mtbs