Unnatural landscapes in ecology: Generating the spatial distribution of brine spills

Henriette I. Jager, Rebecca A. Efroymson, Kerry L. Sublette, Tom L. Ashwood

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

Quantitative tools are needed to evaluate the ecological effects of increasing petroleum production. In this article, we describe two stochastic models for simulating the spatial distribution of brine spills on a landscape. One model uses general assumptions about the spatial arrangement of spills and their sizes; the second model distributes spills by siting rectangular well complexes and conditioning spill probabilities on the configuration of pipes. We present maps of landscapes with spills produced by the two methods and compare the ability of the models to reproduce a specified spill area. A strength of the models presented here is their ability to extrapolate from the existing landscape to simulate landscapes with a higher (or lower) density of oil wells. Published in 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)687-698
Number of pages12
JournalEnvironmetrics
Volume16
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2005

Keywords

  • Brine spill
  • Gamma distribution
  • Petroleum
  • Poisson distribution
  • Process water
  • Risk assessment
  • Stochastic spill model

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Unnatural landscapes in ecology: Generating the spatial distribution of brine spills'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this