Abstract
Effective biosecurity is necessary to protect nations and their citizens from a variety of threats, including emerging infectious diseases, agricultural or environmental pests and pathogens, and illegal wildlife trade. The physical pathways by which these threats are transported internationally, predominantly shipping and air traffic, have undergone significant growth and changes in spatial distributions in recent decades. An understanding of the specific pathways and donor-traffic hotspots created by this integrated physical transport network is vital for the development of effective biosecurity strategies into the future. In this study, we analysed the physical transport network into Australia over the period 1999–2012. Seaborne and air traffic were weighted to calculate a “weighted cumulative impact” score for each source region worldwide, each year. High risk source regions, and those source regions that underwent substantial changes in risk over the study period, were determined. An overall risk ranking was calculated by integrating across all possible weighting combinations. The source regions having greatest overall physical connectedness with Australia were Singapore, which is a global transport hub, and the North Island of New Zealand, a close regional trading partner with Australia. Both those regions with large amounts of traffic across multiple vectors (e.g., Hong Kong), and those with high levels of traffic of only one type (e.g., Bali, Indonesia with respect to passenger flights), were represented among high risk source regions. These data provide a baseline model for the transport of individuals and commodities against which the effectiveness of biosecurity controls may be assessed, and are a valuable tool in the development of future biosecurity policy.
Highlights
The international transport of people and goods poses significant border security risks: transmission of infectious diseases [1, 2], individuals and commodities associated with transnational crime or terrorism [3], and threats to food security or the environment [2, 4]
Human-mediated physical transport networks facilitate the introduction of alien species through a variety of pathways and means [10], which we group into three key categories: (i) intentional transport including trade and illicit smuggling, (ii) unintentional stowaways, and (iii) accidental transport alongside a commodity
Flight data were available at a level aggregated monthly by flight number, i.e., the dataset recorded, for each flight number visiting an Australian airport from overseas: each airport visited during the journey, the number of times that journey occurred within the given month, and the number of seats available for passengers on these flights
Summary
The international transport of people and goods poses significant border security risks: transmission of infectious diseases [1, 2], individuals and commodities associated with transnational crime or terrorism [3], and threats to food security (agricultural pests or pathogens) or the environment [2, 4]. Global growth in transnational air travel and seaborne trade has played a significant role in increasing the rates of biological invasions [7], through aiding movement across natural geographic barriers at historically unprecedented rates [8, 9]. Human-mediated physical transport networks facilitate the introduction of alien species through a variety of pathways and means [10], which we group into three key categories: (i) intentional transport including trade and illicit smuggling, (ii) unintentional stowaways, and (iii) accidental transport alongside a commodity. Unintentional transport of stowaways has resulted in the introduction of over 500 exotic terrestrial plant and animal species globally [7], and rising volumes of ballast discharge associated with shipping traffic has been identified as the primary driver of marine invasions [12]. Increased pest interception rates have been related to incoming air traffic volumes into the United States [17]
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