The Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States is a collaborative project between the National Park Service, the University of Georgia Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, and the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England. The purpose of the Atlas is to assist users with identification, early detection, prevention, and management of invasive plants. The focus is on non-native pest plant species impacting natural areas, excluding agricultural and other heavily developed and managed lands. Four main components are species information, images, distribution maps, and early detection reporting procedures. The Atlas supplies users with invasive plant lists and species web pages with plant descriptions, images, native ranges, national- to site-level maps, native plant alternatives and links to additional sources of information.

Invasive plants threaten native species by competing for resources including sunlight, water, nutrients, soil and space, causing genetic changes in native relatives through hybridization, providing plant materials that are unpalatable or toxic to native animals, and serving as an agent for the spread of harmful plant pathogens. They impact natural areas by displacing and significantly altering native plant communities, impeding forest regeneration and natural succession, changing soil chemistry, altering hydrologic and fire regimes and causing other changes that favor their growth and spread. In addition to the great loss of biodiversity, habitat degradation and other ecological consequences, invasive plants cause enormous economic consequences valued in billions of dollars annually. The Invasive Plant Atlas is one step in the effort to combat invasive species, preserve our natural landscapes and the native plants, animals, and other creatures that inhabit them.