A national weed management decision-support system

摘要

In New Zealand, Regional Councils have the primary governmental responsibility for coordinating the management of weeds and other pests. Similarly, in Australia, it is the States that have this responsibility. In both countries, the national coordination and harmonisation of weed control efforts has been a perennial challenge, leading to initiatives such as the Weeds of National Significance in Australia and the National Policy Direction for Pest Management in New Zealand. Further, in both countries,the number of weeds that affect natural and productive ecosystems far exceeds the resources available to manage them such that prioritisation is necessary. In New Zealand, a favourable cost benefit analysis is required for a weed to be considered for inclusion in a Regional Pest Management Plan. The ability of New Zealand's Regional Councils to undertake such analyses has been hampered by a lack of crucial biophysical data regarding the target weed, including its current distribution, potential futuredistribution and its rate of spread in the absence of control. To redress this, and to facilitate the required nationally consistent approach, scientists from AgResearch and CSIRO have collaborated to develop a platform of five tools: a national weed occurrence database (NWDD) that automatically harvests regional weed occurrence data; a database of CLIMEX models and their projections for New Zealand (CLI-MENZ); a weed spread model (MDiG); a spatial weed risk assessment model (WRASP); and a cost benefitmodel (CBA for regional pest management). In this paper, we illustrate this decision-support system and comment on its adoption by Regional Councils in New Zealand and its contribution to targeting resources to the most deserving weed problems. We then consider how easily it might be extended for use in Australia.