Validation of Unconventional Oil and Gas Wellpad Construction Records from an Administrative Database of Pennsylvania Using High-resolution Aerial Imagery Restricted; Files Only
Miao, Hanwen (Spring 2026)
Abstract
Unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD) has become a major source of domestic fossil energy production in the United States. A growing body of research has reported associations between intensive, multi-stage UOGD construction activities, particularly directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and adverse health outcomes in nearby communities. Construction records for each UOGD wellpad: a collection of multiple wellheads, including the start and end dates of key stages, are crucial for characterizing stage-specific emission profiles and evaluating time-varying health impacts. In the absence of detailed wellpad-level construction timelines, most population-based health studies have relied on sparse construction dates in administrative databases to assess human exposure to UOGD activity. However, construction information in administrative databases is rarely validated independently. We evaluated the accuracy of construction records from a representative governmental database maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) by comparing record-derived timelines against independently derived labels high-resolution aerial imagery for 3,384 UOGD wellpads in Pennsylvania. In the validation sample, 45.5% of images labeled as Drilling and 25.0% of images labeled as Hydraulic fracturing were obtained during the No construction period as recorded in the PADEP database. These results indicate substantial misclassification in governmental construction records and suggest that record-based timelines tend to underestimate construction duration, especially drilling. These findings underscore the need for caution when using governmental records to define UOGD wellpad exposure windows in epidemiologic and environmental analyses.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1
Chapter 2: Methods and Materials……………………………………………...…………………3
Chapter 3: Results and Discussion……………………………………………...…………………6
REFERENCES
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