Hydraulic fracturing and water resources

Lucija Muehlenbachs and Sheila Olmstead

Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, 2014, vol. 29, issue 4, 5

Abstract: The potential for impacts on water resources is often recognized as an important issue when shale gas development is discussed. Potential and significant impacts on groundwater and surface water resources might arise by wellbores traversing drinking-water aquifers, the use of significant water inputs, and the generation of large wastewater streams. Water withdrawals for energy development could reduce instream flows in rivers and streams, or reduce groundwater levels, diminishing ecosystem services—such as species habitat, recreation, and pollution assimilation— and reducing water available for other diverted uses. Water pollution from shale gas development could reduce or degrade the quality of available resources for uncompensated downstream users who divert water from shared rivers and streams, or users of a common aquifer. Accidental releases are one avenue for these impacts. Liquid waste treatment and disposal is another. Recent research is beginning to shed more light to better inform public concerns.

Keywords: Environmental Economics and Policy; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/195739/files/cmsarticle_401.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaeach:195739

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.195739

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().