DIGITAL REPRESENTATION OF OIL AND NATURAL GAS WELL PAD SCARS IN SOUTHWEST WYOMING-2012 UPDATE By Steven L. Garman and Jamie L. McBeth 2015 U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 934 ABSTRACT: The recent proliferation of oil and natural gas energy development in the Greater Green River Basin of southwest Wyoming has accentuated the need to understand wildlife responses to this development. The location and extent of surface disturbance that is created by oil and natural gas well pad scars are key pieces of information used to assess the effects of energy infrastructure on wildlife populations and habitat. A digital database of oil and natural gas pad scars had previously been generated from 1-meter (m) National Agriculture Imagery Program imagery (NAIP) acquired in 2009 for a 7.7-million hectare (ha) (19,026,700 acres) region of southwest Wyoming. Scars included the pad area where wellheads, pumps, and storage facilities reside and the surrounding area that was scraped and denuded of vegetation during the establishment of the pad. Scars containing tanks, compressors, the storage of oil and gas related equipment, and produced-water ponds were also collected on occasion. This report updates the digital database for the five counties of southwest Wyoming (Carbon, Lincoln, Sublette, Sweetwater, Uinta) and for a limited portion of Fremont County within the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) study area using 2012 1-m NAIP imagery and 2012 oil and natural gas well permit information. This report adds pad scars created since 2009, and updates attributes of all pad scars using the 2012 well permit information. These attributes include the origination year of the pad scar, the number of active and inactive wells on or near each pad scar in 2012, and the overall status of the pad scar (active or inactive). The new 2012 database contains 17,404 pad scars of which 15,532 are attributed as oil and natural gas well pads. Digital data are stored as shapefiles projected to the Universal Transverse Mercator (zones 12 and 13) coordinate system. These data are available from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ds934. DISCLAIMERS: Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also contains copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items for other than personal use must be secured from the copyright owner. Although these data have been processed successfully on a computer system at the U.S. Geological Survey, no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data on any other system, or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. The U.S. Geological Survey shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data described and/or contained herein. This data base, identified as DS 934, has been approved for release and publication by the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey. Although this database has been subjected to rigorous review and is substantially complete, the U.S. Geological Survey reserves the right to revise the data pursuant to further analysis and review. Furthermore, it is released on condition that neither the U.S. geological Survey nor the U.S. Government may be held liable for any damages resulting from its authorized or unauthorized use. CONTENTS: 00Readme.txt DS934_abstract.pdf datafiles: padscar_2012.zip shapefiles padscar_2012_utm12.shp (.dbf/.prj/.sbn/.sbx/shp.xml/.shx) padscar_2012_utm13.shp (.dbf/.prj/.sbn/.sbx/shp.xml/.shx) padscar_2012-utm12_metadata.met metadata padscar_2012-utm12.shp.xml padscar_2012-utm13_metadata.met padscar_2012-utm13.shp.xml TO ACCESS THE DATA The data files can be downloaded via the web from http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/934 or from http://dx.doi.org/10.30133/ds934. The text product is a Portable Document Format (.pdf) file which requires Adobe Acrobat for viewing. Acrobat software runs on a variety of systems, and is available for download free of charge from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com. ArcReader is available free at: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcreader/. Software Recommended: Adobe Acrobat (6.x, 7.x, or 8.x), or Adobe Acrobat Pro (6.x, 7.x, or 8.x), or the free Adobe Reader (6.x, 7.x, or 8.x), 8.x is preferred. ArcGIS 10.0, or newer preferred.