Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
known to invade similar habitats to the area of the list. For example, caulerpa sea-
weed (
Caulerpa taxifolia
), an aggressive invader introduced to the Mediterranean
around 1984, was placed on the US Federal Noxious Weed List in 1999 by the
Southern California Caulerpa Action Team, a watch group for early detection
of this detrimental organism (Anderson 2005). When it was found off shore of
California, USA in June 2000 there was already an infrastructure in place and
action was taken to eradicate the plant within 17 days of its discovery. h is was
probably due to a well-prepared action and assessment team and the fact that the
plant was on a watch list before it even entered the country. It is important to know
about the biology of an invader before it arrives so that when it appears you can be
prepared with strategies and have already determined potential habitat and eff ects.
Ideally, countries would share information about their invaders with each other,
but unfortunately o
cial reporting (e.g. to the UN Convention on Biodiversity)
is very limited, and the global-scale invasive species information exchange systems
that collect and share this information do not receive su
cient fi nancial support.
Westbrooks (2003) defi nes the essential attributes of an EDRA programme
similarly as: including aids for species identifi cation; authentication/verifi cation
of new fi eld observations; reporting records; maintaining a database of species'
occurrences and locations; alerting appropriate o
cials and rapid response teams;
and monitoring management actions. Simple EDRA programmes have been
developed for selected taxa in some local areas using these principles. For example,
the state of Wisconsin in the USA has an early detection programme for purple
loosestrife (
Lythrum salicaria
) whereby public service announcements prompt tele-
vision viewers to call in purple loosestrife locations to a hotline with awaiting weed
coordinators. h is system incorporates adding new information to a database as
soon as a specimen is found with alerting the appropriate o
cials so that a response
team can be notifi ed.
Additional aspects of EDRA components have recently been added for: user
ID and validation; reporting; expert verifi cation; occurrence database; and rapid
assessment (Simpson
et al
. 2006). h is paper highlights the importance of a cen-
tralized data-sharing system. h e authors also mention the importance of species
profi les on the Internet for quick identifi cation of new invaders, biological and
ecological information, global distribution with details about instances of inva-
sion, and information about management options, including case studies of early
detection and rapid response.
rapid assessment
Suggested guiding principles are as follows:
•
An early detection programme must be fully integrated into a comprehensive,
science-based, research and management programme that coordinates aspects
of prevention, EDRA, research, surveys, and monitoring, and outreach and
reporting.
