A bio-economic ‘war game’ model to simulate plant disease incursions and test response strategies at the landscape scale

Authors

David C. Cook, Department of Agriculture and Food, WAFollow
Jean-Philippe Aurambout, Department of Primary Industries, VictoriaFollow
Oscar N. Villalta, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria
Shuang Liu, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganisationFollow
Jacqueline Edwards, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria
Savi Maharaj, The University of Stirling, UK

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-24-2015

Journal Title

Food Security

ISSN

Print: 1876-4517 Electronic: 1876-4525

Disciplines

Agricultural Economics | Biosecurity

Abstract

Loss of area freedom from invasive alien species can have serious food security implications and place huge responsibility on incursion response managers. They make critical decisions despite profound uncertainty surrounding invasion ecology, surveillance and control technology effectiveness and human behaviour. We propose a spatially-explicit model that can aid response managers in devising and testing management strategies in a virtual world where the costs of failure are negligible. We apply the model in a group-based decision setting in which participants practise responding to fictional disease incursions in a pome fruit production area in Australia. Using the model, the response management group was able to develop mutually satisfactory rules of thumb for the use of quarantine and destruction zones and for when to withdraw resources from eradication efforts.

Recommended Citation

Cook, D C, Aurambout, J, Villalta, O N, Liu, S, Edwards, J, and Maharaj, S. (2015), A bio-economic ‘war game’ model to simulate plant disease incursions and test response strategies at the landscape scale. Food Security, 8, 37-48.
https://library.dpird.wa.gov.au/bs_research/31