The Missing Environmental Impacts in Invasive Species Cost Assessments –Insights from an InvaCost-based regional review

Accounting for the costs incurred due to biological invasions is important for informing invasive species management policies, and understanding and mitigating future losses. InvaCost, a living review and massive database of cost estimates, is a valuable open science resource that can support informed policy and management of invasive species and has since been the basis of many regional and national cost assessments. This study used this existing database and an independent systematic literature review to conduct an expedited systematic review (or rapid review) for the state of New South Wales, Australia. This work aimed to comprehensively collate existing data to estimate the historical and current reported costs for the state, and assess the utility of InvaCost for smaller-scale regional assessments. Our findings show that invasive species costs within NSW are in the scale of billions of dollars annually and have increased substantially over time. Furthermore, the majority of reported costs are attributed to agricultural/industry loss, while value estimates for costs to environmental assets or ecosystem services are almost entirely absent from the literature. This work highlights the ongoing damage that continues to be incurred due to invasive species in Australia, particularly for agriculture, and emphasizes the need to also consider the environmental impacts in cost assessments. Finally, this work highlights the value of open science resources such as InvaCost for supporting biosecurity research and policy.