Economic costs of invasive alien species across Europe

By

Haubrock, Phillip
Turbelin, Anna
Cuthbert, Ross N.
Novoa, Ana
Taylor, Nigel
Angulo, Elena
Ballesteros Mejia, Liliana
Bodey, Thomas
Capinha, César
Diagne, Christophe
Essl, Franz
Golivets, Marina
Kirichenko, Natalia
Kourantidou, Melina
Leroy, Boris
Renault, David
Verbrugge, Laura
Courchamp, Franck

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2021

Original Publication

NeoBiota : advancing research on alien species and biological invasions

Volume

67

Pages

153--190

Subjects

Bodiversity , European Union , InvaCost , monetary impacts , non-native biota , socio-economic correlates , socioeconomic sectors

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sophia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.67.58196

 

Abstract

Biological invasions continue to threaten the stability of ecosystems and societies that are dependent on their services. Whilst the ecological impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) have been widely reported in recent decades, there remains a paucity of information concerning their economic impacts. Europe has strong trade and transport links with the rest of the world, facilitating hundreds of IAS incursions, and largely centralised decision-making frameworks. The present study is the first comprehensive and detailed effort that quantifies the costs of IAS collectively across European countries and examines temporal trends in these data. In addition, the distributions of costs across countries, socioeconomic sectors and taxonomic groups are examined, as are socio-economic correlates of management and damage costs. Total costs of IAS in Europe summed to US40.20 billion (or €116.61 billion) between 1960 and 2020, with the majority (60%) being damage-related and impacting multiple sectors. Costs were also geographically widespread but dominated by impacts in large western and central European countries, i.e. the UK, Spain, France, and Germany. Human population size, land area, GDP, and tourism were significant predictors of invasion costs, with management costs additionally predicted by numbers of introduced species, research effort and trade. Temporally, invasion costs have increased exponentially through time, with up to US3.58 billion (€19.64 billion) in 2013, and US39.56 billion (€116.24 billion) in impacts extrapolated in 2020. Importantly, although these costs are substantial, there remain knowledge gaps on several geographic and taxonomic scales, indicating that these costs are severely underestimated. We, thus, urge increased and improved cost reporting for economic impacts of IAS and coordinated international action to prevent further spread and mitigate impacts of IAS populations.