Abstract
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has been increasing in the eastern part of Ohio for the last few years leading to the increased stress on water resources, particularly on the hydrological low flows. Yet, evaluation of the various impacts of fracking on stream low flows using appropriate tools is still a challenging issue, even though significant progress has been achieved in recent decades to advance the scientific tools and techniques for watershed modeling. While various existing watershed models are capable of addressing water resource issues, each model is unique and the appropriate selection of model depends upon several factors. Therefore, the objective of this study are: (i) to review the current state of art for various available watershed models, including their potential capability, in order to conduct a study related to hydraulic fracking and (ii) to present a case study using best selected model application. Our review indicated that the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is one of the most competent models to assess water issues related to the fracking process at various spatial and temporal scales. The SWAT model incorporating hydraulic fracking is presented in a series of steps: (i) in the first step, the preparation of input data for water use and hydraulic fracking is discussed, including detail calibration and validation of the SWAT model for this study; (ii) in the second step, a case study is presented to evaluate the impact of hydraulic fracking with stream low flows by analyzing the current fracking trend in watershed; (iii) finally, issues and challenges related to data availability and sources of water withdrawal is presented. The SWAT model was calibrated and validated both for daily and monthly scales for 9 various locations of the watershed, with a monthly Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency varying from 0.49 to 0.88 for calibration and from 0.55 to 0.86 for validation. Analysis indicates that fracking practices have nominal impact on annual flows, with modest impact on seven days lows flows, especially at the localized scale, varying in the range of 5.2 to 10.6%.
Highlights
There has been increasing availability and use of natural gas for the transportation sector and electrical production due to technological advances with hydraulic fracturing
Even though we found models performance rating different for different application studies for various models, we decided to select Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model due to numerous reasons: (i) SWAT models has advanced in comparison to other models and can disintegrate watershed into multiple subbasins and Hydrologic Response Units (HRUs) for continuous simulation of flow at various scales (Jha, 2011); (ii) model is widely accepted worldwide by scientific community and well supported by USDA; (iii) model is considered suitable for the ungagged watershed (USEPA, 2012) and watershed characterized with limited data
The calibrated and validated SWAT model was integrated with water use, point sources data and fracking condition of year 2012 in order to analyze the streamflow with given rate of fracking condition
Summary
There has been increasing availability and use of natural gas for the transportation sector and electrical production due to technological advances with hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The production of unconventional shale gas has increased significantly to supply the growing demand for energy and support economic development (USEIA, 2011). One of the important aspects for the substantial growth of natural gas is the increased use of hydraulic fracturing. (ODNR) has projected that approximately 122 billion gallons of water will be needed if the State of Ohio drills all possible Utica wells (20,000). While the fracking technology has been considered a positive aspect in term of gas production and economic development, there is a growing concern about the large amount of water needed for fracturing and possible water resources management issues. Surface water withdrawal may directly reduce the level in reservoirs, lakes and streams
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