The Threat List

Status:Environment

GlobalEnvironmentNews-derivedmedium confidenceSourcing reviewed 2026-09-12

Invasive Species

Invasive alien species are a global environmental and economic threat that damages biodiversity, agriculture, infrastructure, and human well-being. The supplied evidence indicates very large and rising costs, including an estimated $423 billion annually worldwide.

Severity score

66.9

Critical · default weighting

Trajectory

Steady

How this is ranked

What this is

Score breakdown

Each factor is a 0–100 relative severity index, not the raw figure or a specific time period. The actual counts and periods are listed under "Standardized Impact" on the right.

Loss of life

32

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

72

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

88

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

90

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

82

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.

Audit trail

Everything this entry has been through — when it was first searched for, queued, reviewed and approved, and how its figures and rank have moved since.

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