Impact Assessment - Winged Sea Lavender (Limonium lobatum) in Victoria
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Assessment of plant invasiveness is done by evaluating biological and ecological characteristics such as germination requirements, growth rate, competitive ability, reproduction methods and dispersal mechanisms. Assessment of plant impacts, however, is determined by the extent to which a plant affects a land manager’s environmental, economic and social resources.
The relative importance of these resources varies depending upon the value people place on them and, as such, the assessment process is subjective. For example, a farmer is likely to place a higher emphasis on the impact of a plant on production (economic resource) than its impact on areas of natural vegetation occurring on the farm. Conversely, a Landcare or Friends group would value environmental or social resources more than economic resources.
Recognising that the value of resources vary between different land tenures, plant impact assessments allow a prioritisation of resources by land managers. Assessments can apply at a local, regional or state level, and the relative values of each resource identified may differ at each level.
The impact assessment method used in the Victorian Pest Plant Prioritisation Process uses three broad resource categories: social, environmental and agricultural, each with a number of related attributes. For example, social resources include such attributes as how the plant affects human access for recreation, or if it creates a health risk due to toxicity or by producing allergens.
| Each resource attribute, or criterion, is assessed relative to a list of intensity ratings. Depending upon information found in relation to each criterion, a rating of Low, Medium Low, Medium High or High is assigned. Descriptions of the impact criteria and intensity ratings used in this process can be viewed here. |
The following table provides information on the impact of Winged sea lavender.
A more detailed description of the methodology of the Victorian Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) method can be viewed below:
Victorian Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) method (PDF - 630 KB)
Victorian Weed Risk Assessment (WRA) method (DOC - 1 MB)
To view the information PDF requires the use of a PDF reader. This can be installed for free from the Adobe website (external link).
Common Name: Winged sea lavender
Scientific name: Limonium lobatum
| Question | Comments | Rating | Confidence |
| Recreation | |||
| 1. Restrict human access? | Grows to less than 1 m tall (Cunningham et al 1981). Unlikely to inhibit access. | L | MH |
| 2. Reduce tourism? | Ornamental species could have some impact on aesthetics; however there is no evidence for this. | ML | L |
| 3. Injurious to people? | There is no evidence of this, nor is it likely if no significant allergies have been reported at this stage. | L | M |
| 4. Damage to cultural sites? | In the Wimmera the species has spread from plantings in cemeteries (Lardner pers comm. 2007). No significant physical damage has been reported however it has some impact on the aesthetics. | ML | M |
| Abiotic | |||
| 5. Impact flow? | Terrestrial species with no particular association with water or attributes that would lead to impeding water flow. | L | M |
| 6. Impact water quality? | Terrestrial species. | L | M |
| 7. Increase soil erosion? | Unknown, the species is an annual ground cover; it may prevent erosion by reducing bare ground, unknown when it dies back and if this would leave the soil vulnerable. | M | L |
| 8. Reduce biomass? | Low growing species, with no evidence of disrupting the establishment of canopy species, likely to only cause direct replacement. | ML | M |
| 9. Change fire regime? | Unknown. | M | L |
| Community Habitat | |||
| 10. Impact on composition (a) high value EVC | EVC= Creekline Grassy Woodland (E); CMA= Wimmera; Bioreg= Wimmera; VH CLIMATE potential. Reported to only occasionally be locally abundant and this varies from year to year (Cunningham et al 1981; Walsh and Entwistle 1996). Therefore it is considered capable of causing minor displacement of species. | ML | MH |
| (b) medium value EVC | EVC= Box Ironbark Forest (D); CMA= Wimmera; Bioreg= Wimmera; VH CLIMATE potential. Reported to only occasionally be locally abundant and this varies from year to year (Cunningham et al 1981; Walsh and Entwistle 1996). Therefore it is considered capable of causing minor displacement of species. | ML | MH |
| (c) low value EVC | EVC= Red Swale Mallee (LC); CMA= Wimmera; Bioreg= Wimmera; VH CLIMATE potential. Reported to only occasionally be locally abundant and this varies from year to year (Cunningham et al 1981; Walsh and Entwistle 1996). Therefore it is considered capable of causing minor displacement of species. | ML | MH |
| 11. Impact on structure? | Reported to only occasionally be locally abundant and this varies from year to year (Cunningham et al 1981; Walsh and Entwistle 1996). Therefore it is considered capable of causing minor effect of a small proportion of the species. | L | M |
| 12. Effect on threatened flora? | Unknown. | MH | L |
| Fauna | |||
| 13. Effect on threatened fauna? | Unknown. | MH | L |
| 14. Effect on non-threatened fauna? | Unknown. | M | L |
| 15. Benefits fauna? | Unknown; the species may be grazed or the flowers visited by insects. | M | L |
| 16. Injurious to fauna? | Unknown. | M | L |
| Pest Animal | |||
| 17. Food source to pests? | May be grazed by feral species including rabbits (Eldridge 2002). | MH | M |
| 18. Provides harbour? | Only a low growing annual species (Cunningham et al 1981). Therefore believed to be only capable of providing short term cover. | M | M |
| Agriculture | |||
| 19. Impact yield? | Only occasionally reported growing on productive land, any drop in productivity is not believed to be significant (Lardner pers comm. 2007). | L | M |
| 20. Impact quality? | Only occasionally reported growing on productive land, any drop in productivity is not believed to be significant (Lardner pers comm. 2007). | L | M |
| 21. Affect land value? | Only occasionally reported growing on productive land | L | M |
| 22. Change land use? | Only occasionally reported growing on productive land | L | M |
| 23. Increase harvest costs? | Only occasionally reported growing on productive land | L | M |
| 24. Disease host/vector? | Unknown. | M | L |
Impact Assessment Record - Winged sea lavender (PDF- 66KB)
Impact Assessment Record - Winged sea lavender (DOC - 55KB)
This table can also be viewed as a PDF document (printer friendly). To view the information PDF requires the use of a PDF reader. This can be installed for free from the Adobe website (external link).
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