Determining the Availability of U.S. Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Resources Using Geographic Information System Technologies

摘要

The Energy Acts of 2000 and 2005 require the Secretary of the Interior to conduct oil and gas inventories of all onshore Federal lands and to determine the extent of any restrictions or impediments to their development. Phase III of the inventory (also known as the "EPCA" report) was released May 21, 2008 and is the first truly national assessment of these restrictions. A DVD containing the report and the source GIS data (ESRI personal geodatabases) is also available. Using ArcGIS, the Federal lands were classified and mapped as a hierarchy of nine access categories. This layer was then unioned with the oil and gas resources. The results show, in map and tabular forms, the areas of Federal lands with respect to the nine access categories, and the volumes of oil and natural gas underlying each category. This report represents the third in a series of efforts to comprehensively integrate, using geospatial technology, oil and gas resources with Federal land accessibility. This paper will be informative for anyone who has an interest in Federal lands, energy development, and national scale GIS analyses.