CREST-PRF: Integrating Economics, Policy, Infrastructure and Climate in the Energy Water Nexus: A Decision Support Tool for Water Management in the Oil and Gas Industry

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The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology-Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (CREST-PRF) track within the CREST program supports beginning CREST Center investigators with significant potential and provides them with training and research experiences that will broaden perspectives, facilitate interdisciplinary interactions and establish them in positions of leadership within the scientific community. This CREST-PRF research is aligned with the goals of CREST Center for Water and the Environment (CWE) in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of New Mexico. Recent trends in the oil and gas (O&G) industry show unprecedented growth such that 80% of new global demand will be met with domestic (US) supplies. This growth is due largely to technological advances (horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing) that allow for cost effective recovery of O&G from unconventional reserves. This production both requires and produces large volumes of water, both of which must be managed efficiently to insure production stability and minimize negative impacts on the broader community. The objective of this research is to understand the circumstances under which water may constrain O&G production in the future by considering how stakeholders (producers, water rights holders, regulators) respond to changes in four factors: Economics, Policy, Infrastructure, and Climate (EPIC). A decision support tool will be designed to evaluate these dynamics and to identify management strategies that will improve the resilience of these critical systems in uncertain future conditions. This work will bridge gaps between site specific analyses, technology assessments, and human behavior by addressing water management in a holistic and temporally dynamic manner. As a result, it will generate new knowledge regarding how the system functions, what mechanisms guide stakeholder-level decisions, and how water can be optimally managed in the future at a scale that is meaningful to producers, regulators, and other water users.This project will employ a novel approach that integrates spatial and big data processing and analysis, system dynamics (SD) and agent-based modeling (ABM) techniques, and expert elicitation to investigate the feedbacks between physical and decision-driven systems. This work will focus on the Permian Basin (NM, TX) which is estimated to represent one of the largest oil reserves globally but is also water limited and marked by periods of extended drought. Because of the rapid growth in O&G development in the region, significant knowledge gaps exist regarding how water management dynamics in the oil and gas industry will change over time and what factors will influence these relationships. The linkages between EPIC factors will be analyzed using well-level production information, water, climate, and temporal transportation network modeling. Expert knowledge will provide the basis for understanding interactions with human, stakeholder-driven systems and incorporated into an ABM. This information will improve the ability of stakeholders to identify innovative water management strategies that reduce risk and support long-term water needs in arid, energy producing regions. In addition to the extensibility of this research to other coupled energy-water systems, it provides a means to further understand implications of these dynamic systems on human health and safety in a more efficient, spatially and temporally relevant manner.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.