Quantification of the environmental and control costs of weeds

Summary

This project, which builds on previous work, aims to fill two identified gaps in Australia’s post-border weed risk management. Using Gamba grass and Para grass as pilot species, the project will develop and trial models for evaluating the benefits and costs of differing control methods in limiting the negative impacts of invasive grasses which are described as ‘conflict of interest’ species because of their competing economic benefits and associated environmental costs.

The project will build on the existing strong national linkages established during the development of the NT WRM process, which was developed in consultation with WRM experts from South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, NSW and WA.

Aims

The purpose of this project is to fill two key knowledge gaps in Australia's Post-border WRM system, that is to quantify

(a) the environmental impacts and

(b) the relative benefits and costs of control measures of two invasive grasses within a case study context.

The outcomes of the research proposal are:

1) a review of existing material and a synthesis related to the environmental impact of weeds, in order to identify the main impacts that should form the focus of the economic analysis;

2) the development/adaptation of a framework for assessing the relative costeffectiveness of alternative control measures;

3) the development/adaptation of a framework for assessing the benefits of control of 'conflict of interest' weeds.

Background

Weed management agencies support the principle that prioritisation of and investment in weed management must be informed by a risk management approach (Australian Weeds Strategy 2007) and in Australia this prioritisation process should be guided by Australia's "Post-border Weed Risk Management (WRM) Protocol" (Virtue et al. 2007).

However, while there is nationwide agreement that the elements within the WRM Protocol represent best practice, the availability of some of the decision support tools that underpin such a system have been identified as knowledge gaps or needing refinement following additional R&D. In particular there have been calls for WRA to expand to include tools that assess the range of environmental and economic costs, and to assess the costs, risks and likely success of weed control measures (Wainger and King 2001).

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