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Chris Baynard, University of North Florida
The ecological footprint caused by energy development creates large-scale and permanent changes on the landscape. The size and type of footprint varies on location, energy policy and company dynamics. Energy companies are increasingly concerned with minimizing environmental alterations as part of best environmental practices.
The methods described here provide a useful and cost-effective process for measuring the ecological footprint created by exploration and production (E&P) operations. It uses GIS and remote sensing techniques to measure the following landscape ecology disturbances: vegetation change, infrastructure density, edge-effect zones, core areas and number of rivers crossed. The study site is Venezuela’s heavy oil belt between 1990 and 2005.
Findings show variations among the operations examined, with the newest concessions exhibiting the smallest footprint. This suggests that implementing lessons learned and adopting newer technology can minimize landscape disturbances related to E&P. It also suggests that the type of company involved, state versus multinational, may also affect the type and size of footprint.
These methods can provide a landscape assessment of E&P operations from the desktop. This information can be used to reduce alterations in subsequent development phases as well as improve planning for new concessions. Finally, these findings lend themselves for the establishment of a sustainability index based on objective measures. This type of transparency can fortify self reporting.