Helping policymakers develop a state-wide strategy for managing aquatic invasive species

A team of researchers led by Dr. Amy Kinsley, an assistant professor in the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine, has published findings that can help Minnesota policymakers decipher the best method for distributing funds to counties for limiting the spread of aquatic invasive species.

Many aquatic invasive species severely damage ecosystem health. “We know that invasive species have negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems, leading to losses in biodiversity and shifts in food webs that ultimately impact human, animal, and environmental health,” says Kinsley. And the invasive species that lurk in Minnesota’s waterways hitch rides to new lakes and rivers on recreational boats and other watercraft. In order to limit the spread of aquatic invasive species, state and county agencies fund boat inspection and decontamination stations at lake access points. 

In 2021, Kinsley and a team of researchers were asked by the Minnesota legislature to write a report outlining a prospective state-wide surveillance program for Minnesota’s aquatic invasives. In the process, Kinsley says she and her team found that the state allocates about $10 million across counties every year. “That is unique to Minnesota,” she says.

In this study, the researchers modeled a bi-level approach in which the state would allocate funding and other resources to local organizations to support their county-level plans for boat inspections and boater outreach. They analyzed how such an approach would affect the way funds are dispersed across Minnesota and, as a result, how effectively inspection would take place across lakes in each county. The goal was to help Minnesota state leaders understand how changing policy around funding for boat inspections and decontamination could affect the state’s efficacy in preventing new infestations.

The team fed their bi-level model the aquatic invasive species infestation status of 9,182 Minnesota lakes and an estimated number of boat movements from infested to uninfested lakes. They also fed a state-level model the same information to compare how many lakes would be inspected under the two different solutions. 

Ultimately, the team found that bi-level allocation of funds is less efficient than state-level prevention decisions for inspecting and decontaminating boats at various lakes across the state. In her next study, Kinsley plans to model how cross-county collaboration could help further bolster effective and efficient aquatic invasive species management.

Read the full article in The Journal of Environmental Management.