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• Noxious Weeds Program

Noxious Weeds Program Risk Assessments

PPQ conducts weed risk assessments (WRA) as part of its process for safeguarding U.S. agriculture and natural resources from weeds and invasive plants. A weed risk assessment is a science-based evaluation of the potential of a plant species to establish, spread, and cause harm in the United States. PPQ may initiate an assessment for any number of reasons, including: evaluation of commodity import requests, detection of a new weed in the United States, and petitions for listing from stakeholders.

Below is a list of the available WRAs that PPQ has conducted. They are provided for interested stakeholders and may be useful in setting local policies or for informing resource managers. While most of the risk assessments were prepared by PPQ using our current weed risk assessment process [see Guidelines document below], others were prepared using an older process (prior to 2010). We continue to provide these for interested stakeholders. Below, species are listed alphabetically by their scientific name. If a species has a common name, it is provided. New entries to this website are also indicated. Listings may be associated with one or two designations, noted below, that describe their current regulatory status.

• FNW – The species is currently regulated as a Federal Noxious Weed. For a complete list of all species regulated as Federal Noxious Weeds, see the FNW program home page.
• NAPPRA – The species is currently Not Authorized (import) Pending Pest Risk Analysis. For a complete list of all pest plant species listed under this category see the NAPPRA web page.

Reference Files

• APHIS-PPQ Weed Risk Assessment Guidelines (PDF – 1.4 MB)
• Summary of WRA results (except old formats): (MS Excel - 12.9 MB or PDF - 144 Kb)

Weed Risk Assessments

For information on weed risk assessments contact:
Anthony L. Koop, Ph.D.
Weed Risk Assessment Lead / Botanist, Ecologist
Telephone: (919) 855-7429
Email: Anthony.L.Koop@usda.gov

- Or -

For information on FNW policies contact:
Anne LeBrun
National Policy Manager / Agriculturalist
Telephone: (301) 851-2259
E-mail: Anne.LeBrun@usda.gov

For information on plants for planting listed under NAPPRA contact:
Indira Singh, Ph.D. 
Regulatory Specialist / Weed Scientist 
Telephone: (301) 851-2020
E-mail:  indira.singh@usda.gov