Cost-effective management of invasive species using linear-quadratic control

Julie Blackwood, Alan Hastings and Christopher Costello

Ecological Economics, 2010, vol. 69, issue 3, 519-527

Abstract: The removal of invasive species is the first step toward restoring an ecosystem following invasion. We develop spatially-explicit, dynamic optimal control strategies for a large class of invasion problems using linear-quadratic control. This approach allows us to produce new insights that help guide policy that could not have emerged from existing models. We assume adults are sedentary, and heterogeneous patches are connected via dispersal of offspring. We develop a generalized approach to optimally manage species across time and space and apply the framework to several examples, primarily based on Spartina alterniflora. General conclusions are drawn and we show that strong connectivity makes invasive control much more costly, demonstrating that reducing connectivity can be a cost-effective part of invasive species control.

Keywords: Linear-quadratic; control; Invasive; species; Spatially; explicit; Connectivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(09)00359-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:69:y:2010:i:3:p:519-527

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().