Racicot Alexandre, Babin-Roussel Véronique, Dauphinais Jean-François, Joly Jean-Sébastien, Noël Pascal, Lavoie Claude
École supérieure d'aménagement du territoire et de développement régional, Université Laval, Quebec City, QC, G1A 0V6, Canada.
Environ Manage. 2014 May;53(5):1023-33. doi: 10.1007/s00267-014-0250-x. Epub 2014 Feb 20.
We propose a framework to facilitate the evaluation of the impacts of shale gas infrastructures (well pads, roads, and pipelines) on land cover features, especially with regards to forest fragmentation. We used a geographic information system and realistic development scenarios largely inspired by the PA (United States) experience, but adapted to a region of QC (Canada) with an already fragmented forest cover and a high gas potential. The scenario with the greatest impact results from development limited by regulatory constraints only, with no access to private roads for connecting well pads to the public road network. The scenario with the lowest impact additionally integrates ecological constraints (deer yards, maple woodlots, and wetlands). Overall the differences between these two scenarios are relatively minor, with <1 % of the forest cover lost in each case. However, large areas of core forests would be lost in both scenarios and the number of forest patches would increase by 13-21 % due to fragmentation. The pipeline network would have a much greater footprint on the land cover than access roads. Using data acquired since the beginning of the shale gas industry, we show that it is possible, within a reasonable time frame, to produce a robust assessment of the impacts of shale gas extraction. The framework we propose could easily be applied to other contexts or jurisdictions.
我们提出了一个框架，以促进对页岩气基础设施（井场、道路和管道）对土地覆盖特征影响的评估，特别是在森林破碎化方面。我们使用了地理信息系统和主要受宾夕法尼亚州（美国）经验启发但适用于魁北克省（加拿大）一个森林覆盖已经破碎且天然气潜力高的地区的现实发展情景。影响最大的情景是仅受监管限制的开发导致的，即没有连接井场与公共道路网络的私人道路。影响最小的情景还整合了生态限制因素（鹿场、枫树林和湿地）。总体而言，这两种情景之间的差异相对较小，每种情景下森林覆盖损失均不到1%。然而，在这两种情景下，大片核心森林都将丧失，并且由于破碎化，森林斑块数量将增加13%至21%。管道网络在土地覆盖上的占地面积将比进场道路大得多。利用自页岩气行业开始以来获取的数据，我们表明在合理的时间框架内，有可能对页岩气开采的影响进行有力评估。我们提出的框架可以很容易地应用于其他情况或司法管辖区。
