Integrated Pest Management

Abstract

What are the costs in terms of the effects on the environment, human health, wildlife, beneficial insects and the safety of food and water, if people continue to use pesticides at the current rate? Mankind has recognised the costs in the last decades, and will continue to suffer the consequences unless people reduce their dependence on non-selective pesticides as being the only solution to mosquito problems. The society must advocate specific, carefully planned pesticide use, integrated with other control measures. Integrated pest management (IPM) devises a workable combination of the best components of all control methods applicable to, for example, a mosquito problem. For this reason IPM in mosquito control, which could be also called Integrated Mosquito Management (IMM), is the application of sound ecological principles to maintain mosquito populations below the acceptable nuisance and health injury level. It is more precisely defined as the rational combination of all available control methods aimed to maintain mosquito population at acceptable levels in the most effective, economical and safe manner.