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Social costs of invasive plant species in the interior northwestern United States
Conference presentation   Peer reviewed

Social costs of invasive plant species in the interior northwestern United States

M Wibbenmeyer and Tyron J Venn
IUFRO World Congress, 2010 (Seoul, Korea, 23-Sep-2010–28-Sep-2010)
International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO)
2010
url
http://www.iufro.org/events/congresses/2010/View
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Abstract

Ecological Applications
Concerns about invasive species have increased substantially because of their escalating threat to the health, integrity, and productivity of natural and agricultural ecosystems. Invasive plants in the United States are responsible for control costs and market damage costs that sum to billions of dollars annually. Although negative impacts on non-market values are likely to be large, to date little research has been performed to estimate these economic losses. The scarcity of non-market damage cost estimates for invasive plants is recognized by policy-makers and economists as a major limitation of most existing invasive plant management decision-support tools. This paper will present findings from a choice modeling non-market valuation survey that estimates the marginal social costs of invasive plants in the forested interior northwestern United States. At the time of abstract submission, we do not have specific results to report; however, marginal social costs of invasive plants are being estimated with regard to degradation of water quality, wildlife habitat, and recreation opportunities. This study is part of a larger project that is developing a weed management decision support tool that can spatially and temporally allocate weed management treatments to minimize total damage cost, including non-market damages.

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