Feral Pig Control Difficulty Index

The control difficulty index (CDI) has been developed to provide a spatial assessment of the estimated difficulty of enacting an African Swine Fever (ASF) suppression program given an outbreak for any region across Australia. This layer is estimated at a spatial grain of 30-arcseconds (approx. 1 km2). The index provides a representation of the estimated difficulty for human enacted control actions and does not include information on the predicted densities of feral pigs or their ecology/behaviours given different habitat types. As such, the index does not integrate difficulties of control that could arise from the ability to find and kill pigs or the efficacy of any particular control strategy (e.g. baiting vs shooting) given differences in terrain. Using satellite remote sensing data products and distance measures, this index combines several factors that will influence the difficulty of undertaking control across Australia by capturing the difficulty in mobilising resources into a region, the difficulty in undertaking ground control once arrived in the infected zone and the ability to undertake aerial control and/or carcass removal. To achieve this the index integrates measure that include, terrain ruggedness, road and track networks, land use type and canopy cover and remoteness from population centres. This Index was developed to support national planning for African Swine Fever and was developed rapidly at a coarse resolution. The index can be modified for local conditions and the base code is available on request.