Hawaii-Pacific Weed Risk Assessment [HP-WRA] is
a research project by Curt Daehler
(University of Hawaii) and Julie Denslow
(USDA Forest Service) that has been supported by funding from the USDA Forest Service and from the Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife Urban and Community Forestry program.
The WRA scoring system was originally developed in Australia and New Zealand for
the evaluation of plants being imported. The intent of the HP-WRA research
project is to identify plants that pose a high weed risk in Hawaii and other
Pacific Islands.
The HP-WRA score does not measure actual invasiveness or economic or ecological
harm in the field. Rather, a designation of H(HPWRA) is a prediction that a
species will become invasive
. The HP-WRA does not measure species benefits in terms of economic, ecological,
public health, medicinal, historic, community, cultural, tourism, and esthetic
value; nor does it determine if a suitable alternative species exists.
The HP-WRA only considers published information on invasiveness in Hawaii or
elsewhere and it does not include an actual "in-the field" evaluation
of current impacts in Hawaii. Another evaluation protocol called the Hawaii
Exotic Plant Evaluation Protocol (HEPEP) is being developed to provide a
current field evaluation of species that have been designated H(HPWRA).
The HP-WRA ratings have no regulatory authority and the HP-WRA
"list" is not an official State list of invasive plants. By
statute, the Hawaii Department of Agriculture is solely responsible for determining
which plant and animal species are prohibited or permitted into the State
(Hawaii Administrative Rules 4:68:1 - 'Noxious Weed Rules'). To determine which
species are prohibited in Hawaii, please consult the official State
of Hawaii List of Plant Species Designated as Noxious Weeds.
| WRA designation | Meaning |
| L | Not currently recognized as invasive in Hawaii, and not likely to have major ecological or economic impacts on other Pacific Islands based on the HP-WRA screening process. |
| L(Hawai'i) | Not currently recognized as invasive in Hawaii based on a track record of not becoming naturalized despite being widely planted in Hawaii for at least 40 years. |
| H(HPWRA) | Likely to be invasive in Hawaii and on other Pacific Islands as determined by the HP- WRA screening process., which is based on published sources describing species biology and behavior in Hawaii and/or other parts of the world. |
| H(Hawai'i) | Documented to cause significant ecological or economic harm in Hawaii, as determined from published information on the species' current impacts in Hawaii. [more details] |
| EVALUATE | The species has been assessed using the HP- WRA system; however, no assessment of risk can be provided at this time because 1)important information is missing from the assessment or 2)the species possesses a combination of traits and characteristics that make its likely behavior difficult to assess using the WRA system. |
To download the full assessment for
any species, please use our search interface.
Completed assessments sorted by DATE (most recent are at the top)
<% if search <> "nothing" then %>| Date | Preferred_species_name | Common name | WRA score | WRA designation |
| <%= rs("Date") %> | <%= rs("Preferred_species_name") %> | <%= rs("Common name") %> | <%= rs("WRA score") %> | <%= rs("WRA designation") %> |
| No Search Results Matched <%= u_search %> |