Abundance of water bodies is critical to guide mosquito larval control interventions and predict risk of mosquito-borne diseases.

Characterization of mosquito breeding habitats is often accomplished with the goal of guiding larval control interventions as well as the goal of identifying areas with higher disease risk. This characterization often relies on statistical measures of association (e.g., regression coefficients) between covariates and presence/absence or abundance of larva. Here we contend that these measures of association are not enough; researchers should also study the spatial and temporal distribution of water bodies. We provide recommendations on how current methodology may be improved to adequately take into account the distribution of water bodies.