Effective and efficient prioritization of invasive species treatments is an ever more important aspect of land management, as the number and distribution of invasive species increase yet budgets are often decreasing. Land managers have a multitude of prioritization frameworks from which to choose but the vast majority only consider species as a whole rather than individual populations. The Spatial Invasive Infestation and Priority Analysis (SIIPA) model (built in ESRI ArcGIS software) is a customizable tool for rapid application of a prioritization framework to known invasives populations within a preserve, management area, region, etc.
The SIIPA model is based on the framework provided in The Nature Conservancy’s Draft Weed Management Plan, prioritizing invasive species based on four characteristics also common to many other prioritization schema: 1) current extent of the species; 2) current and potential impacts of the species; 3) value of habitats the species infests; and 4) difficulty of control and establishing replacement species. The model can be customized to have different classes for each characteristic, different weights for each class, to include other characteristics, and so on.
We are providing examples of this model in three different case studies: The Nature Conservancy’s Disney Wilderness Preserve, the U.S. Forest Service’s Apalachicola National Forest, and the Heartland Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area; showing how the model works at different scales and for different land management objectives. The SIIPA model provides land managers with an adaptable, easy-to-utilize decision support tool for making on-the-ground prioritization choices. The small preserve and large preserve models can be run using a Basic ArcGIS license, but a few tools within the region model require an Advanced license.
Large Preserve Model (Apalachicola Nat. Forest) | Small Preserve Model (TNC Disney Preserve)
Regional Model (Heartland Cooperative Mgmnt. Area)
The SIIPA model is a joint product of The Nature Conservancy and the University of Florida. Contact Deb Stone for additional information.
