Utah uses AI to find 25,000 more storm drains in fight against mosquitoes
Utah County deployed an AI model to analyze aerial imagery, uncovering 25,000 previously unmapped storm drains. The discovery boosts mosquito abatement efforts by allowing crews to treat more breeding grounds, reducing the risk of West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne illnesses.
LOCAL NEWS
Utah County uses AI to find 25,000 more storm drains in fight against mosquitoes
Jun 11, 2026, 8:05 PM | Updated: 8:09 pm
BY ALEX CABRERO
KSLTV.com
PROVO — A new artificial intelligence program is helping Utah County mosquito abatement crews find thousands of storm drains they didn’t know existed, giving them new tools to help prevent mosquito-borne illnesses before they become a problem.
The technology, developed by Utah County’s Information Systems Department, analyzed high-resolution aerial photographs and identified approximately 25,000 more storm drains that were not included in the abatement teams’ existing database.
Those newly identified drains are important because they can become prime breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
“What we’re trying to do is prevent West Nile virus, any kind of mosquito-borne illness from happening in the county,” said Jason Bird, director of Utah County Mosquito Abatement.
Mosquito abatement crews on bicycles spend the spring and summer months treating storm drains throughout the county with water-soluble packets designed to kill mosquito eggs and larvae before they hatch.
“Certain species of mosquitoes really like storm drains,” said Bird.
One of the people helping with that effort is Alyssa Collins, who rides a bicycle from drain to drain, using a digital map to locate treatment sites.
“The map already has all the storm drains in it. They’re all marked,” said Collins. “We just bike to where the little mark is and then throw it in.”
Finding all those storm drains used to be one of the biggest challenges.
Utah County believed it had roughly 50,000 storm drains mapped across the county.
As the county continued to grow, officials knew their records were likely incomplete.
“We didn’t know exactly where all of them were,” said Bird. “With the development of Utah County, we’ve grown, I believe, about 40% in population since 2010.”
That’s when his team asked the county’s Information Systems team for help using artificial intelligence.
Patrick Wawro, director of Utah County Information Systems, said GIS programmer Nathan Thomas developed a model that could recognize storm drains in aerial photography.
“He designed an AI model that looks at our most recent high-resolution aerial photography and we train the model to learn what to look for,” said Wawro. “We taught what a storm drain looks like. Sometimes they’re round, sometimes they are square, sometimes it’s a rectangle. But they look like this, and over a few iterations of testing, it learns.”
The AI scanned countywide imagery and identified thousands of additional storm drains.
“It opened our eyes to how many more storm drains actually are out there,” said Bird.
According to county officials, the technology has helped update outdated GIS data while allowing mosquito abatement crews to spend more time treating drains instead of searching for them.
“It’s been able to allow us to detect where these storm drains are without having our technicians spend the time finding them,” said Bird.
While finding an additional 25,000 storm drains means more work for mosquito abatement crews, officials say it’s work worth doing.
“What we’re trying to do is eliminate the problem before it becomes a problem,” said Bird. “Success in mosquito abatement is nothing happens. There’s no headlines, there’s no outbreaks. That’s success to us.”
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