Local lessons for a global landscape challenge: Design and planning responses to unconventional shale gas development

Deep shale natural gas deposits made accessible by new technologies are quickly becoming a demonstrative share of North America’s energy portfolio. The pace and scale of recent extraction overwhelms local and state planning and regulatory bodies and is exempted from national regulation. Extraction is dispersed and the full extent of cultural and environmental impact is equally dispersed and varies considerably. Additionally, extraction activities fluctuate and respond to global market considerations. Unlike traditional energy deposits and extraction footprints, shale gas offers dispersed and complex landscape challenges. These challenges are both cultural and environmental; And they are experienced individually, locally and regionally, despite being influenced by the global energy market. Our paper describes the local and regional challenges experienced by communities in the Marcellus Shale region of the eastern United States. We report on the ways, using a geodesign approach, in which we are working with communities to develop tools for comprehensive landscape planning and informed decision making. In this paper, we emphasize our research focused on visual and cultural resources.