RODERWOLDE, Netherlands — How far does a mosquito fly? Harry Boerema wants to know.

Boerema lives near a drainage project, where Dutch authorities are dredging a huge meter-deep (3-foot) basin in the northern rural landscape to head off flood waters and protect towns and villages from disaster.

The project threatens to inflict hordes of mosquitoes on people living around the water retention area, so scientists set out to calculate how to keep the boundaries of the ditch far enough from human habitation to protect residents from pest infestation.

The question they needed to find out: How far does a common European human-biting mosquito fly?

What they found surprised them: A hungry female looking for a “host” will fly at least 150 meters (yards), three times farther than previously thought, said Piet Verdonschot, who conducted the research.

The 1,700 hectare (4,200-acre) basin, begun in 2003, is designed to collect heavy rainwater that will slowly be channeled to the North Sea. But frequent wet-dry cycles will be perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Buzzing pests are nothing new for Boerema, a retired professor of architectural history who has lived for 36 years in his quiet cottage set amid dairy farms.

“I don’t mind them to a certain extent. But not in surplus,” he says. “I’m a nature lover, and mosquitoes are part of nature — although not the most likable ones.”