Unveiling the hidden economic toll of biological invasions in the European Union

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60076658%3A12520%2F23%3A43906381" target="_blank" >RIV/60076658:12520/23:43906381 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-023-00750-3" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-023-00750-3</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12302-023-00750-3" target="_blank" >10.1186/s12302-023-00750-3</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Unveiling the hidden economic toll of biological invasions in the European Union

Original language description

BackgroundBiological invasions threaten the functioning of ecosystems, biodiversity, and human well-being by degrading ecosystem services and eliciting massive economic costs. The European Union has historically been a hub for cultural development and global trade, and thus, has extensive opportunities for the introduction and spread of alien species. While reported costs of biological invasions to some member states have been recently assessed, ongoing knowledge gaps in taxonomic and spatio-temporal data suggest that these costs were considerably underestimated.ResultsWe used the latest available cost data in InvaCost (v4.1)-the most comprehensive database on the costs of biological invasions-to assess the magnitude of this underestimation within the European Union via projections of current and future invasion costs. We used macroeconomic scaling and temporal modelling approaches to project available cost information over gaps in taxa, space, and time, thereby producing a more complete estimate for the European Union economy. We identified that only 259 out of 13,331 (similar to 1%) known invasive alien species have reported costs in the European Union. Using a conservative subset of highly reliable, observed, country-level cost entries from 49 species (totalling US$4.7 billion; 2017 value), combined with the establishment data of alien species within European Union member states, we projected unreported cost data for all member states.ConclusionsOur corrected estimate of observed costs was potentially 501% higher (US$28.0 billion) than currently recorded. Using future projections of current estimates, we also identified a substantial increase in costs and costly species (US$148.2 billion) by 2040. We urge that cost reporting be improved to clarify the economic impacts of greatest concern, concomitant with coordinated international action to prevent and mitigate the impacts of invasive alien species in the European Union and globally.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Environmental Sciences Europe

ISSN

2190-4707

e-ISSN

2190-4715

Volume of the periodical

35

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

16

Pages from-to

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UT code for WoS article

001003552700001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85161374574