A Framework for Quantitative Assessment of Impacts Related to Energy and Mineral Resource Development

Seth S. Haines 10 Jay E. Diffendorfer 9 Laurie Balistrieri 8 Byron Berger 15 Troy Cook 0 10 Don DeAngelis 14 Holly Doremus 13 Donald L. Gautier 12 Tanya Gallegos 10 Margot Gerritsen 17 Elisabeth Graffy 16 Sarah Hawkins 10 Kathleen M. Johnson 11 Jordan Macknick 6 Peter McMahon 7 Tim Modde 4 Brenda Pierce 11 John H. Schuenemeyer 5 Darius Semmens 9 Benjamin Simon 2 Jason Taylor 1 3 Katie Walton-Day 7 0 Present address: Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy , Washington DC, USA 1 Present address: Cape Cod National Seashore, National Park Service , Wellfleet MA, USA 2 Office of Policy Analysis, U.S. Department of the Interior , Washington DC, USA 3 National Operations Center , Bureau of Land Management, Denver CO, USA 4 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service , Denver CO, USA 5 Southwest Statistical Consulting, LLC, Cortez CO, USA 6 National Renewable Energy Lab , Golden CO, USA 7 Colorado Water Science Center , U.S. Geological Survey, Denver CO 80225, USA 8 U.S. Geological Survey, Seattle WA 98195, USA 9 Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center , U.S. Geological Survey, Denver CO 80225, USA 10 Central Energy Resources Science Center , U.S. Geological Survey, Denver CO 80225, USA 11 U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston VA 20192, USA 12 U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park CA, USA 13 Berkeley Law, University of California , Berkeley CA, USA 14 Department of Biology, University of Miami , Miami FL, USA 15 Crustal Geophysics and Geochemistry Science Center , U.S. Geological Survey, Denver CO 80225, USA 16 Consortium for Science , Policy, and Outcomes, Arizona State University , Tempe AZ, USA 17 Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford Uni- versity, Stanford CA , USA Natural resource planning at all scales demands methods for assessing the impacts of resource development and use, and in particular it requires standardized methods that yield robust and unbiased results. Building from existing probabilistic methods for assessing the volumes of energy and mineral resources, we provide an algorithm for consistent, reproducible, quantitative assessment of resource development impacts. The approach combines probabilistic input data with Monte Carlo statistical methods to determine probabilistic outputs that convey the uncertainties inherent in the data. For example, one can utilize our algorithm to combine data from a natural gas resource assessment with maps of sage grouse leks and pin on-juniper woodlands in the same area to estimate possible future habitat impacts due to possible future gas development. As another example: one could combine geochemical data and maps of lynx habitat with data from a mineral deposit assessment in the same area to determine possible future mining impacts on water resources and lynx habitat. The approach can be applied to a broad range of positive and negative resource development impacts, such as water quantity or quality, economic benefits, or air quality, limited only by the availability of necessary input data and quantified relationships among geologic resources, development alternatives, and impacts. The framework enables quantitative evaluation of the trade-offs inherent in resource management decision-making, including cumulative impacts, to address societal concerns and policy aspects of resource development. - INTRODUCTION Many critical questions facing society involve natural resource availability, development, and use. Availability assessments of energy and mineral resources (e.g., Charpentier and Cook 2010; Singer and Menzie 2010) help decision makers, the private sector, and the general public to make informed decisions regarding these resources, but traditionally these studies do not consider external costs and benefits (e.g., positive or negative impacts on ecologic, hydrologic, and socioeconomic systems) of resource development and use. Similarly, assessments of water and ecological/biological systems generally lack quantitative linkage to energy and mineral resource development. Single-resource assessments are tremendously important, but development decisions increasingly require additional information to support analysis of the trade-offs among diverse natural resources. This information includes direct effects of resource development (e.g., habitat lost or jobs created), resource co-dependencies (e.g., water required for mining), and resource availability conflicts (e.g., subsurface coal deposits made inaccessible by co-located gas well pads or protected areas). This type of assessment fits into the broad category of study that is often described as integrated assessments. In this manuscript, we focus specifically on linking energy (mainly petroleum) and mineral (in particular, nonfuel minerals) resources with the potential impacts of their development. A number of efforts have been made to link assessments of related resources; they include varying degrees of quantitative integration across the disciplines and employ a variety of integration methods. Mulder and Hagens (2008) consider returns on investment for energy technologies that include impacts on natural and human systems, while Snyder and Kaiser (2009) and Tho rhallsdo ttir (2007) compare costs and benefits of particular development strategies. Other approaches focus on the environmental (Copeland et al. 2009; Okey and Kuzemchak 2009), human-health (National Research Council 2009), or water consumption (Nicot and Scalon 2012) implications of energy development and use. Studies can produce site-specific, geographically detailed information (Noble 2008; Fargione et al. 2012), or they can produce national-scale information (International Atomic Energy Agency 2005). None of these studies, however, establish a broadly applicable methodology that is based on robust assessments of the specific energy or mineral resource being considered and quantitative assessments of the impacts of interest. To address this need, we (the authors) met in a workshop setting for three meetings of approximately 3 days each, spread over 16 months. In addition, we held weekly telephone calls and web meetings during the final 8 months of the effort. Our assembled group includes diverse technical expertise (including geology, geophysics, geochemistry, hydrogeology, ecology, social science, economics, law, statistics, and more), employment (government, academia, and private industry), and experience. Due to its composition, the group initially struggled with communication and managing diverse expectations about scope and objectives, but we found common language and vision and were able to accomplish what we set out to do. This manuscript presents the central findings of our work. We propose a framework for quantitative assessment of natural resource development impacts (positive and negative), which is based on the linkage of established energy and mineral resource assessment methods with data and models that describe (...truncated)