Developing a model for environmental weed management in fragmented landscapes: A case study

Summary

This project is focused on landscape scale weed management in South East South Australia. It is designed to test the scientific merit, acceptability and usefulness of a new integrated planning tool that takes account of the interactions of weeds and natural systems across entire landscapes. The management tool has been developed to assist in prioritising environmental weed management actions based on the risks posed.

Aims

The South East NRM board in cooperation with the Department for Environment and Heritage in South East South Australia have developed, over the past two years, a working model which prioritises environmental weed management across the region based on an assessment of the weed threat posed to individual patches of remnant vegetation.

The model also incorporates the biological and physical values of individual patches of vegetation to produce a final ranking of patches of remnant vegetation based on their value and the weed threat posed to them. This process has been tenure blind and is designed to allow resources for weed management to be allocated accurately to those areas of highest priority. This is essential for planning the allocation of scarce resources to achieve the best value for money.

This project will allow the concept to be broadened, incorporating the views of other practitioners in the field, and adapted to incorporate the characteristics of a range of other temperate landscapes. The end product will be a model which is detailed enough to be implemented in any temperate landscape, flexible enough to be adapted to differing priorities and which meets the needs of the full complement of end users.

Background

Weed management strategies have traditionally focused on a single species approach which, when dealing with environmental weeds, ignores the complexity inherent in natural systems and the interactions of multiple weed species across a landscape. Effective treatment of environmental weeds requires an integrated approach which takes account of the interactions of weeds and natural systems across the entire landscape. The regional scale is typically used for NRM planning and yet few credible models can be found which can be used for environmental weed planning at this scale.

Publications and Resources

None listed

Citation

Land & Water Australia. 2008. Developing a model for environmental weed management in fragmented landscapes: A case study. [Online] (Updated April 28th, 2009)
Available at: http://lwa.gov.au/node/2579 [Accessed Wednesday 29th of February 2012 08:15:11 PM ].