AIS Explorer: Intervention Impact—an application for planning more cost-effective AIS prevention programs

Abstract Overland transport of recreational boats facilitates movement of aquatic invasive species (AIS) between waterbodies. Once established, AIS can have detrimental and difficult-to-manage ecological impacts. Prevention, the most cost-effective AIS management strategy, is one strategy in which management agencies focus on reducing spread by implementing programs like boater education, watercraft inspection, and hot water decontamination. Given resource constraints, deciding which management actions to take, and where to implement them, remains challenging. To address this gap, we developed and tested a new application entitled “ Intervention Impact ” to add to the AIS Explorer, an online AIS program-planning dashboard ( www.aisexplorer.umn.edu ). Intervention Impact assists managers by simulating AIS spread scenarios based on user-defined lake-level budget, effort, and intervention effectiveness values, enabling comparisons between scenarios in search of the “best” approaches. Outputs include estimates for levels of risk reduction and the numbers of new infestations averted for both zebra mussel and starry stonewort. We demonstrate the application’s utility using input conditions based on Cass County, Minnesota (USA), as a case study. The case study shows that each prevention strategy involves trade-offs and might be more or less preferable under different budget constraints. It also demonstrates the value of a data-driven approach to development of AIS prevention plans.