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Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia

Effective biosecurity is necessary to protect nations and their citizens from a variety of threats, including emerging infectious diseases, agricultural or environmental pests and pathogens, and illegal wildlife trade. The physical pathways by which these threats are transported internationally, pre...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Cope, Robert C., Ross, Joshua V., Wittmann, Talia A., Prowse, Thomas A. A., Cassey, Phillip
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4755591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26881782
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148831
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author Cope, Robert C.
Ross, Joshua V.
Wittmann, Talia A.
Prowse, Thomas A. A.
Cassey, Phillip
author_facet Cope, Robert C.
Ross, Joshua V.
Wittmann, Talia A.
Prowse, Thomas A. A.
Cassey, Phillip
author_sort Cope, Robert C.
collection PubMed
description Effective biosecurity is necessary to protect nations and their citizens from a variety of threats, including emerging infectious diseases, agricultural or environmental pests and pathogens, and illegal wildlife trade. The physical pathways by which these threats are transported internationally, predominantly shipping and air traffic, have undergone significant growth and changes in spatial distributions in recent decades. An understanding of the specific pathways and donor-traffic hotspots created by this integrated physical transport network is vital for the development of effective biosecurity strategies into the future. In this study, we analysed the physical transport network into Australia over the period 1999–2012. Seaborne and air traffic were weighted to calculate a “weighted cumulative impact” score for each source region worldwide, each year. High risk source regions, and those source regions that underwent substantial changes in risk over the study period, were determined. An overall risk ranking was calculated by integrating across all possible weighting combinations. The source regions having greatest overall physical connectedness with Australia were Singapore, which is a global transport hub, and the North Island of New Zealand, a close regional trading partner with Australia. Both those regions with large amounts of traffic across multiple vectors (e.g., Hong Kong), and those with high levels of traffic of only one type (e.g., Bali, Indonesia with respect to passenger flights), were represented among high risk source regions. These data provide a baseline model for the transport of individuals and commodities against which the effectiveness of biosecurity controls may be assessed, and are a valuable tool in the development of future biosecurity policy.
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spelling pubmed-47555912016-02-26 Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia Cope, Robert C. Ross, Joshua V. Wittmann, Talia A. Prowse, Thomas A. A. Cassey, Phillip PLoS One Research Article Effective biosecurity is necessary to protect nations and their citizens from a variety of threats, including emerging infectious diseases, agricultural or environmental pests and pathogens, and illegal wildlife trade. The physical pathways by which these threats are transported internationally, predominantly shipping and air traffic, have undergone significant growth and changes in spatial distributions in recent decades. An understanding of the specific pathways and donor-traffic hotspots created by this integrated physical transport network is vital for the development of effective biosecurity strategies into the future. In this study, we analysed the physical transport network into Australia over the period 1999–2012. Seaborne and air traffic were weighted to calculate a “weighted cumulative impact” score for each source region worldwide, each year. High risk source regions, and those source regions that underwent substantial changes in risk over the study period, were determined. An overall risk ranking was calculated by integrating across all possible weighting combinations. The source regions having greatest overall physical connectedness with Australia were Singapore, which is a global transport hub, and the North Island of New Zealand, a close regional trading partner with Australia. Both those regions with large amounts of traffic across multiple vectors (e.g., Hong Kong), and those with high levels of traffic of only one type (e.g., Bali, Indonesia with respect to passenger flights), were represented among high risk source regions. These data provide a baseline model for the transport of individuals and commodities against which the effectiveness of biosecurity controls may be assessed, and are a valuable tool in the development of future biosecurity policy. Public Library of Science 2016-02-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4755591/ /pubmed/26881782 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148831 Text en © 2016 Cope et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cope, Robert C.
Ross, Joshua V.
Wittmann, Talia A.
Prowse, Thomas A. A.
Cassey, Phillip
Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia
title Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia
title_full Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia
title_fullStr Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia
title_full_unstemmed Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia
title_short Integrative Analysis of the Physical Transport Network into Australia
title_sort integrative analysis of the physical transport network into australia
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4755591/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26881782
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148831
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