Ship-borne Nonindigenous Species Diminish Great Lakes Ecosystem Services

John D Rothlisberger,Roger M Cooke,David C Finnoff,David M Lodge

doi:10.1007/s10021-012-9522-6

John D Rothlisberger, Roger M Cooke + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-012-9522-6

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Abstract

We used structured expert judgment and economic analysis to quantify annual impacts on ecosystem services in the Great Lakes, North America of nonindigenous aquatic species introduced by ocean-going ships. For the US waters, median damages aggregated across multiple ecosystem services were 138 million per year, and there is a 5% chance that for sportfishing alone losses exceeded 800 million annually. Plausible scenarios of future damages in the US waters alone were similar in magnitude to the binational benefits of ocean-going shipping in the Great Lakes, suggesting more serious consideration is warranted for policy options to reduce the risk of future invasions via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Highlights

Environmental problems often go unaddressed because the value of lost ecosystem services is not expressed in units commensurate with financial investments needed to solve the problem
This study provides ecosystem-scale estimated distributions of the US bioeconomic impacts of invasive species introduced via a specific vector
Analyses like the one we report here can help to address the consequences of biological invasions in units that can inform more rigorous benefit-cost analyses of alternative policies to prevent future invasions

Summary

Introduction

Environmental problems often go unaddressed because the value of lost ecosystem services is not expressed in units commensurate with financial investments needed to solve the problem. SEJ is an established technique for probabilistic risk assessment (Apostolakis 1990; Cooke 1991; Aspinall 2010) and consequence analysis (Cooke and Goossens 2000) It has previously been used for several environmental applications including assessments of the likelihood of natural disasters (for example, volcanic eruption, dam failure; Aspinall and others 2003; Klugel 2011), the consequences of nuclear accidents (Cooke and Goossens 2000), the drivers of climate change (Morgan and others 2006; Lenton and others 2008), expected changes in fisheries and marine ecosystems (Rothlisberger and others 2010; Teck and others 2010) and increases in mortality attributable to air pollution (Roman and others 2008). The method has not previously been used to assess the ecosystem-level impacts of invasive species

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