Invasive Alien Species

What decisions are based on the analysis of management costs and benefits?

Analyses of the costs and benefits of management are used to support decision making.  It would be useful to gather examples of the types of decisions supported by these analysis. For example:

• Did a management programme have an overall economic benefit?
• What is the most cost-effective surveillance strategy to balance the costs of detection with the risk of incursion?
• How to prioritise a list of species for eradication to achieve the greatest benefit at lowest cost?

It would be useful to discuss and provide examples of the forms of decision making that are informed by these analyses.

Dear all,

I believe there are two main kinds of decisions that we can base on the cost-benefit analysis. The first one is for the prioritization process, ex. a list of species targeted for control or rapid response. The second one is to indicate the strategy or method to manage an invasive species.
In addition, I believe an assessment of the economic cost of invasive species for a specific country or region is also interesting to support increase awareness about the problem.

Cheers,
Tatiani

Hi!
Working in Environmental Protection with IAS, I need to not only know and weigh costs and benefits, but also what are the best options for management, that is what will the various options cost, and how likely the management option chosen is to succeed. This is not usually given in a Classic cost/benefit study.


When listing IAS of EU Concern, that is IAS that are forbidden to import, trade, own, breed, handle in the EU, it was found that a risk assessment was not sufficient to advise on the options available for management. The question is - will the proposed measure, in this case a ban on the species, lead to the desired results of the species disappearing or being controlled?

A group led by Olof Buooy, Giuseppe Brandu and Etienne Branquart developed a method to assess the costs and effectiveness of management options of an invasive alien species. This method was recently used for a number of IAS proposed for listing as IAS of EU concern. see https://circabc.europa.eu/w/browse/ead324a2-f37a-461d-b6bf-b3870c7308ce

For each of the management options -  prevention of intentional introduction and spread, prevention of unintentional introductions, Surveillance to support early detection, rapid eradication for new introductions, management, the following information is required;

- measure description
- effectiveness of the measure
- side effects, both positive and negative,
- acceptability of the measure to stakeholders,
- additional cost information
- level of confidence on the information provided

As such, it is not a cost/benefit analysis, but does give an assessment of the potential costs of the different management options and the probablity that the various options will be effective. This is info that is needed to make an informed decision.


citation: Brandu, G., Lozano, V. and Branquart, E. 2018. Information on measures and related costs in relation to species considered for inclusion on the Union list: Technical note prepared by IUCN for the European Commission.

With best regards
Melanie Josefsson