Projected Landscape Impacts from Oil and Gas Development Scenarios in the Permian Basin, USA.

Projecting landscape impacts from energy development is essential to land management decisions. We forecast landscape alteration resulting from oil and gas well-pad construction across the economically important Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, USA, by projecting current landscape trends through 2050. We modeled three landscape-impact scenarios (low, medium, and high) using recent (2008-2017) trends in well-pad construction and energy production. The results of low-, medium-, and high-impact scenarios suggest that ~60,000, ~180,000, and ~430,000 new well pads could be constructed, potentially causing ~1000, ~2800, and ~6700 km2 of new direct landscape alteration. Almost two-thirds of all new well pads will be constructed within the geologic boundaries of the Delaware and Midland Basins. This translates into a 40, 120, and 300% increase in direct landscape alteration compared with direct alteration from existing well pads. We found that indirect effects (from edges) could increase by twofold, and that the ratio between indirect and direct alteration could decline by half as alteration intensifies and overlaps with existing alteration. The Chihuahuan Desert occupies the largest portion of the study area, and is projected to experience the largest area of alteration from future well-pad construction in the Permian Basin; the degree of direct alteration could increase by 70, 200, and 500% in this desert region, under low-, medium-, and high-impact scenarios. These scenarios can be used to design proactive conservation strategies to reduce landscape impacts from future oil and gas development.

Quantifying Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Quality-Control Measures: A Case Study in Frio River, Texas.

Airborne Lidar Bathymetry (ALB) is an advanced and effective technology for mapping water bodies and measuring water depth in relatively shallow inland and coastal zones. The concept of using light beams to detect and traverse water bodies has been around since the 1960s; however, its popularity has increased significantly in recent years with the advent of relatively affordable hardware, supplemented with potent software applications to process and analyze resulting data. To achieve the most accurate final product, which is usually a digital elevation model (DEM) of the bottom of a water body, various quality-control (QC) measures are applied during and after an airborne mission. River surveys, in particular, present various challenges, and quantifying the quality of the end product requires supplemental surveys and careful analysis of all data sets. In this article, we discuss a recent ALB survey of the Frio River in Texas and summarize the findings of all QC measures conducted. We conclude the article with suggestions for successful ALB deployments at similar survey locations.

Comparison of Recent Oil and Gas, Wind Energy, and Other Anthropogenic Landscape Alteration Factors in Texas Through 2014.

Recent research assessed how hydrocarbon and wind energy expansion has altered the North American landscape. Less understood, however, is how this energy development compares to other anthropogenic land use changes. Texas leads U.S. hydrocarbon production and wind power generation and has a rapidly expanding population. Thus, for ~47% of Texas (~324,000 km2), we mapped the 2014 footprint of energy activities (~665,000 oil and gas wells, ~5700 wind turbines, ~237,000 km oil and gas pipelines, and ~2000 km electrical transmission lines). We compared the footprint of energy development to non-energy-related activities (agriculture, roads, urbanization) and found direct landscape alteration from all factors affects ~23% of the study area (~76,000 km2), led by agriculture (~16%; ~52,882 km2). Oil and gas activities altered <1% of the study area (2081 km2), with 838 km2 from pipelines and 1242 km2 from well pad construction-and that the median Eagle Ford well pad is 7.7 times larger than that in the Permian Basin (16,200 vs. 2100 m2). Wind energy occupied <0.01% (~24 km2), with ~14 km2 from turbine pads and ~10 km2 from power transmission lines. We found that edge effects of widely-distributed energy infrastructure caused more indirect landscape alteration than larger, more concentrated urbanization and agriculture. This study presents a novel technique to quantify and compare anthropogenic activities causing both direct and indirect landscape alteration. We illustrate this landscape-mapping framework in Texas for the Spot-tailed Earless Lizard (Holbrookia lacerata); however, the approach can be applied to a range of species in developing regions globally.

An Improved Approach for Forecasting Ecological Impacts from Future Drilling in Unconventional Shale Oil and Gas Plays.

Directional well drilling and hydraulic fracturing has enabled energy production from previously inaccessible resources, but caused vegetation conversion and landscape fragmentation, often in relatively undisturbed habitats. We improve forecasts of future ecological impacts from unconventional oil and gas play developments using a new, more spatially-explicit approach. We applied an energy production outlook model, which used geologic and economic data from thousands of wells and three oil price scenarios, to map future drilling patterns and evaluate the spatial distribution of vegetation conversion and habitat impacts. We forecast where future well pad construction may be most intense, illustrating with an example from the Eagle Ford Shale Play of Texas. We also illustrate the ecological utility of this approach using the Spot-tailed Earless Lizard (Holbrookia lacerata) as the focal species, which historically occupied much of the Eagle Ford and awaits a federal decision for possible Endangered Species Act protection. We found that ~17,000-45,500 wells would be drilled 2017‒2045 resulting in vegetation conversion of ~26,485-70,623 ha (0.73-1.96% of pre-development vegetation), depending on price scenario ($40-$80/barrel). Grasslands and row crop habitats were most affected (2.30 and 2.82% areal vegetation reduction). Our approach improves forecasts of where and to what extent future energy development in unconventional plays may change land-use and ecosystem services, enabling natural resource managers to anticipate and direct on-the-ground conservation actions to places where they will most effectively mitigate ecological impacts of well pads and associated infrastructure.

Time Series Analysis of Energy Production and Associated Landscape Fragmentation in the Eagle Ford Shale Play.

Spatio-temporal trends in infrastructure footprints, energy production, and landscape alteration were assessed for the Eagle Ford Shale of Texas. The period of analysis was over four 2-year periods (2006-2014). Analyses used high-resolution imagery, as well as pipeline data to map EF infrastructure. Landscape conditions from 2006 were used as baseline. Results indicate that infrastructure footprints varied from 94.5 km2 in 2008 to 225.0 km2 in 2014. By 2014, decreased land-use intensities (ratio of land alteration to energy production) were noted play-wide. Core-area alteration by period was highest (3331.6 km2) in 2008 at the onset of play development, and increased from 582.3 to 3913.9 km2 by 2014, though substantial revegetation of localized core areas was observed throughout the study (i.e., alteration improved in some areas and worsened in others). Land-use intensity in the eastern portion of the play was consistently lower than that in the western portion, while core alteration remained relatively constant east to west. Land alteration from pipeline construction was ~65 km2 for all time periods, except in 2010 when alteration was recorded at 47 km2. Percent of total alteration from well-pad construction increased from 27.3% in 2008 to 71.5% in 2014. The average number of wells per pad across all 27 counties increased from 1.15 to 1.7. This study presents a framework for mapping landscape alteration from oil and gas infrastructure development. However, the framework could be applied to other energy development programs, such as wind or solar fields, or any other regional infrastructure development program. Landscape alteration caused by hydrocarbon pipeline installation in Val Verde County, Texas.

Lumbar fractures involving five vertebrae: a case report.

We report a 20-year-old man who sustained lumbar fractures involving 5 vertebrae following a road traffic accident. He was initially treated non-operatively to allow multiple pedicles to heal. He developed post-traumatic kyphosis for which corrective osteotomy and posterior spinal instrumented fusion was performed. He achieved a good functional outcome. We emphasise the need for careful radiological evaluation in patients with high-energy trauma, and the option of treating such complex injuries by non-operative means. If post-traumatic kyphosis develops, it can be dealt with later and the most mobile segments of the lumbar spine can be preserved.