Potential Impact of Sagebrush Ecosystem to Oil and Gas Development for the Green River Basin

For the Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design (GRB LCD) assessment, we mapped the vulnerability of the sagebrush ecosystem to oil and gas development for each 12-digit hydrologic unit. Using a vulnerability framework, we defined Sensitivity (S) as the multi-scale average of sagebrush ecosystem land cover derived from LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type (LANDFIRE 2014). Exposure (E) to oil and gas development was quantified as the average kernel density of active oil and gas wells at multiple scales. Potential Impact (PI) is the square root transformed product of oil and gas development exposure and sagebrush ecosystem sensitivity. Adaptive Capacity (AC) for sagebrush ecosystem was quantified as the inverse mean human modification score across multiple scales. Finally, we combined PI and AC into an overall vulnerability rank.