Abstract
The spatial footprint of unconventional (hydraulic fracturing) and conventional oil and gas development in the Marcellus Shale region of the State of Pennsylvania was digitized from high-resolution, ortho-rectified, digital aerial photography, from 2004 to 2010. We used these data to measure the spatial extent of oil and gas development and to assess the exposure of the extant natural resources across the landscape of the watersheds in the study area. We found that either form of development: (1) occurred in ~50% of the 930 watersheds that defined the study area; (2) was closer to streams than the recommended safe distance in ~50% of the watersheds; (3) was in some places closer to impaired streams and state-defined wildland trout streams than the recommended safe distance; (4) was within 10 upstream kilometers of surface drinking water intakes in ~45% of the watersheds that had surface drinking water intakes; (5) occurred in ~10% of state-defined exceptional value watersheds; (6) occurred in ~30% of the watersheds with resident populations defined as disproportionately exposed to pollutants; (7) tended to occur at interior forest locations; and (8) had >100 residents within 3 km for ~30% of the unconventional oil and gas development sites. Further, we found that exposure to the potential effects of landscape disturbance attributable to conventional oil and gas development was more prevalent than its unconventional counterpart.
Highlights
New, unconventional, deep drilling and extraction technology known, as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, has created important new sources and markets for hydrocarbon products, especially for natural gas
The sites are in some places close to streams, impaired streams, wildland trout streams and surface drinking water intakes, and sites are present in locations designated as environmental justice areas (Table 3)
Unconventional and conventional oil and gas development has occurred in some of Pennsylvania’s exceptional value watersheds (Figure 5), and the possibility of either type of oil and gas development occurring in these watersheds was about equal (Table 3)
Summary
New, unconventional, deep drilling and extraction technology known, as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, has created important new sources and markets for hydrocarbon products, especially for natural gas. In less than 10 years, approximately 10,000 wells have been established in the Marcellus Shale region of the State of Pennsylvania in the United States (Figure 1) [1]. The environmental impact of this activity is potentially critical and is even more important considering that the area has been exploited for other types of hydrocarbon extraction, (oil, coal, methane) for over years. This paper examines the combined impact of both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon extraction in this region utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and available geospatial and social datasets
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