Global economic costs of invasive plants
InvaCost is a dynamic database and a global repository of reported monetary costs caused by invasive species. Using InvaCost, an assessment of the global economic impacts of invasive plants was conducted. Type of costs included economic impact on different sectors (e.g. agriculture, fishery, forestry, etc), costs of damage and costs of management. In total, between 1960 and 2022, a total of USD 361.8 billion in documented costs representing a conservative baseline of invasive plant impacts at global level. Most costs were due to terrestrial plant species (USD 266 billion), followed by aquatic (USD 6.8 billion), and semi aquatic species (USD 1.5 billion). Some of the species with the highest economic costs included Tamarix spp. (Tamaricaceae), Opuntia spp. (Cactaceae), Ambrosia artemisiifolia (Asteraceae, EPPO List of Invasive Alien Plants), Euphorbia esula (Euphorbiaceae) and Pontederia crassipes (Pontederiaceae, EPPO A2 List). These species incurred multi-billion USD costs. In the InvaCost database, most of the costs are from North America (for invasive plants USD 265.0 billion). Costs for Europe were USD 11.4 billion. Interestingly, the cost of damage was over three times the amount spent on management of invasive plants.
Sources
Mugnai M, Balzani P, Soto I, Ahmed DA, Cuthbert R, Tarkan AS, Tordoni E, Dolan E, Carneiro L, Brundu G, Catford J, Essl F, Fernandez RD, Fujinuma J, Heringer G, Hulme PE, Kolomiiets G, Kourantidou M, Lazzaro L, Martin-Fores I, Misuri A, Novoa A, Nuñez M, Pergl J, Pyšek P, Siccardi E, van Bodegom P, Vilà M, Webber B, Xavier R, Zheng S, Courchamp F (2026) Global economic costs of invasive plants. Research Square (Pre-Print) DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-11016003/v1
InvaCost database (v4.1; https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12668570 )