A collective understanding of economic impacts and in particular of monetary costs of biological invasions is lacking for the Nordic region. This paper synthesizes findings from the literature on costs of invasions in the Nordic countries together with expert elicitation. The analysis of cost data has been made possible through the InvaCost database, a globally open repository of monetary costs that allows for the use of temporal, spatial, and taxonomic descriptors facilitating a better understanding of how costs are distributed. The total reported costs of invasive species across the Nordic countries were estimated at $8.35 billion (in 2017 US$ values) with damage costs significantly outweighing management costs. Norway incurred the highest costs ($3.23 billion), followed by Denmark ($2.20 billion), Sweden ($1.45 billion), Finland ($1.11 billion) and Iceland ($25.45 million). Costs from invasions in the Nordics appear to be largely underestimated. We conclude by highlighting such knowledge gaps, including gaps in policies and regulation stemming from expert judgment as well as avenues for an improved understanding of invasion costs and needs for future research.

Aalto University Department of Built Environment Water and Development Research Group Aalto Finland; University of Helsinki Department of Forest Sciences Helsinki Finland

Chalmers University of Technology Göteborg Sweden

Department of Biology University of Turku Turku Finland

Finnish Environment Institute Helsinki Finland

Menon Economics Oslo Norway

Norwegian Institute for Water Research Norway

School of Biological Sciences Queen's University Belfast Belfast BT9 5DL Northern Ireland

School of Economics and Business Norwegian University of Life Sciences Ås Norway

Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt Department of River Ecology and Conservation Gelnhausen Germany; University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice South Bohemian Research Center of Aquaculture and Biodiversity of Hydrocenoses Vodňany Czech Republic

Southwest Iceland Nature Research Centre Suðurnesjabær Iceland

Swedish Environmental Protection Agency Stockholm Sweden

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre Alnarp Sweden

Université Paris Saclay CNRS AgroParisTech Ecologie Systématique Evolution Orsay France

Université Paris Saclay CNRS AgroParisTech Ecologie Systématique Evolution Orsay France; Estación Biológica de Doñana Seville Spain

University of Helsinki Department of Economics and Management P O Box 27 00014 Helsinki Finland

University of Helsinki Department of Forest Sciences Helsinki Finland

University of Murcia Department of Zoology and Physical Anthropology Murcia Spain

University of Southern Denmark Department of Sociology Environmental and Business Economics Esbjerg Ø Denmark

University of Southern Denmark Department of Sociology Environmental and Business Economics Esbjerg Ø Denmark; Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters Hellenic Center for Marine Research Athens Greece

West Iceland Nature Research Centre Stykkishólmur Iceland

Citace poskytuje Crossref.org

Recent advances in availability and synthesis of the economic costs of biological invasions