Urban Pest Management: the Need for a Correct Mixture of Knowledge and Practice - Urban Insect Pests: Sustainable Management Strategies - page 199

treatments are performed within the legal
limits (i.e. following the product label), they
potentially create unnecessary health and
environmental hazards that could be
avoided by using approaches that integrate
knowledge and practice into chemical
control. This is best illustrated by the fact
that in 2010, the US population comprised
only 4.5% of the world's population, yet
insecticide expenditures accounted for 40%
of total world expenditures (Grube, 2011),
emphasizing the high chemical dependency.
The expanding use of pesticides in urban
areas, estimated at 70 million pounds in
2007 (Grube, 2011; Kroll and Murphy,
1994), is a cause for concern for a number of
reasons. In the USA, agriculture accounted
for approximately 78% of pesticide use,
whereas urban use accounted for 9%
(Grube, 2011). While the total quantity of
pesticides used in agriculture is unquestion-
ably higher than the total urban use, what
really is notable from the point of human
health is the intensity of pesticide use - the
pounds of active ingredient per acre.
Indeed, urban pesticide use is more intense
than agricultural use. This contributes to
higher risk of exposure and health effects in
urban areas (Dhang, 2011). Secondly, the
fate of pesticides in the urban environment
remains largely unknown, posing hidden
dangers to communities.
Although agricultural pesticide use is
carefully regulated and accounted for, urban
pesticide use is largely not tracked, espe-
cially when over-the-counter products are
applied by residential users or private
business owners. Lack of knowledge about
pesticide use prevents researchers from
better identifying sources of pesticides
causing water quality and other environ-
mental problems, educating groups that
have the highest risk of pesticide exposure,
and developing alternatives for sites and
groups that have the highest risk of
exposure. Agricultural pesticides are, how-
ever, applied by certifi ed applicators who
understand pesticide regulations and safe
application techniques. In urban areas, a
large proportion of pesticides are applied by
residential users who have little knowledge
of pest biology and insecticide safety and

have few opportunities for education about
proper pesticide use. Homeowners have
access to a wide array of over-the-counter
insecticides and restricted use pesticides
are easily available online. These pesticides
are often used with the mindset that more is
better, resulting in needless environmental
contamination and chances of human
exposure. This highlights the need for better
practices and increased knowledge in urban
pest management and a closer integration of
knowledge and practice to increase pesti-
cide effi cacy while reducing pesticide use.

Role of IPM in Improving Knowledge
and Practice

Integrated pest management (IPM) has
numerous defi nitions but it is most com-
monly understood as the intelligent selec-
tion and use of pest management tactics that
will ensure favourable economic, environ-
mental and sociological outcomes. Over the
years, the concept of IPM has been redefi ned
and customized to fi t a variety of environ-
ments that require pest management, from
agricultural to urban. Originally proposed
by Stern et al . (1959) to control agricultural
pests, IPM was simply defi ned as combining
biological and chemical management prac-
tices together. Irrespective of how it is
defi ned, the key emphasis of IPM remains
on knowledge and practice.
The concept of IPM was slow to be
adopted in urban environments and after 30
years the idea became accepted by urban
entomologists and the pest management
industry. Further, the development of
insecticide resistance in urban insect popu-
lations, especially cockroaches, house fl ies,
bed bugs and mosquitoes, stimulated an
interest and adoption in IPM techniques.
The adoption was slow, however, owing to
distinctly different goals set for IPM in
agriculture and urban environments. The
goal in agriculture is to suppress the pests to
below the economic injury level. In contrast,
the goal in urban environment is typically
complete eradication. Another major differ-
ence between agricultural and urban IPM is
that agricultural IPM is solely based on