Assessing the relative impacts and economic costs of Japanese knotweed management methods.

ABSTRACT: Sustainable land management encompasses a range of activity that balance land use requirements with wider conservation and ecosystem impact considerations. Perennial invasive alien plants (IAPs), such as Japanese knotweed, cause severe ecological and socio-economic impacts, and methods to control their spread also come at a cost. Synthetic herbicides are generally viewed as less sustainable and more ecologically damaging than alternative approaches. Here we used a comparative Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate the sustainability of herbicide-based management approaches and physical alternatives, using a large-scale Japanese knotweed field study as a model IAP system. Glyphosate-based methods elicited the lowest environmental impacts and economic costs during production. Geomembrane covering

SUBMITTER: Hocking S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10023688 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature