Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78758, USA.
Department of Integrative Biology, College of Natural Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
Environ Manage. 2018 May;61(5):805-818. doi: 10.1007/s00267-018-1000-2. Epub 2018 Mar 5.
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 km), 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 km), led by agriculture (16%; ~52,882 km). Oil and gas activities altered <1% of the study area (2081 km), with 838 km from pipelines and 1242 km 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 m). Wind energy occupied <0.01% (24 km), with ~14 km from turbine pads and ~10 km 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.
最近的研究评估了碳氢化合物和风力能源的扩张如何改变了北美的景观。然而，人们对这种能源开发与其他人为土地利用变化的比较了解较少。德克萨斯州引领美国的碳氢化合物生产和风力发电，并且人口迅速增长。因此，对于德克萨斯州约 47%（324000 平方公里）的地区，我们绘制了 2014 年能源活动的足迹（约 665000 口油井和天然气井、约 5700 台风力涡轮机、约 237000 公里的石油和天然气管道以及约 2000 公里的输电线路）。我们将能源开发的足迹与非能源相关活动（农业、道路、城市化）进行了比较，发现所有因素对景观的直接改变影响了研究区域约 23%（76000 平方公里），其中以农业为主（16%；52882 平方公里）。石油和天然气活动仅改变了研究区域的不到 1%（2081 平方公里），其中 838 公里来自管道，1242 公里来自井场建设，而鹰福特油田的井场平均面积是二叠纪盆地的 7.7 倍（16200 平方米对 2100 平方米）。风能占地不到 0.01%（24 平方公里），其中约 14 公里来自涡轮机平台，约 10 公里来自输电线路。我们发现，分布广泛的能源基础设施的边缘效应造成的间接景观改变比更为集中的城市化和农业造成的间接景观改变更多。本研究提出了一种量化和比较导致直接和间接景观改变的人为活动的新方法。我们以斑点无耳蜥（Holbrookia lacerata）为例，在德克萨斯州展示了这种景观绘图框架；然而，该方法可以应用于全球发展中地区的一系列物种。
