Introduction
Due to the above-mentioned new challenges, researchers from the University of Florida sponsored a workshop on December 6 and 7, 2004 to identify issues related to the management of hydrilla in Florida. The workshop included over 40 experts from county, state and federal agencies that have professional experience with water resource management (see Appendix I).
The workshop began with a series of introductory presentations, followed by a session to identify and prioritize the current issues related to hydrilla management. In this document, we summarized the proceedings of this workshop, and the critical issues identified and prioritized by the assembled experts (see Appendix II). Following the workshop, the authors met in late December 2004 and discussed how to proceed with this document. It was decided that a comprehensive literature review of all the issues identified at the workshop would serve primarily to reiterate the knowledge and background already held by the panel of experts attending the workshop. Therefore, in this document, we briefly summarized the literature for each issue and made management recommendations that reflected the workshop proceedings and conventional wisdom from the literature. The management recommendations were provided to all workshop participants for comment, followed by revision. This final document is intended for distribution to a broader audience and can be used by each appropriate county, state and federal resource management agency (if they choose) to help with their management decisions regarding hydrilla. We recognize that increased stakeholder involvement and public education will be important components of moving forward with future hydrilla management programs.
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