Lessons from a decade of social science research on development of the Marcellus Shale

It’s been about 10 years since Unconventional Oil and Gas development began in the Marcellus Shale of southwest Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. Such development brought with it to the Eastern US not only a range of... [ view full abstract ]

It’s been about 10 years since Unconventional Oil and Gas development began in the Marcellus Shale of southwest Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia. Such development brought with it to the Eastern US not only a range of impacts to communities, culture, policy and politics, but also a small army of social scientists looking to chronicle these important changes that have occurred throughout the past 10 years. This decennial offers a natural opportunity to reflect upon what has transpired, not only documenting the pace and scale and stages of actual development extant during this time, but to also take stock of the social science that has been done, to examine the veracity of various prognostications made along the way, to take note of best practices, highlights and lessons that have been learned, and to examine the new array of challenges and opportunities for energy impact social scientists that have been wrought as a result of this new body of work and passage of time.  Assembled by practitioners of social scientists from across the Marcellus and Utica Shales Region, this presentation seeks to accomplish these aforementioned tasks by offering a retrospective on the last decade of development and looking forward to new questions likely to drive social science as energy development continues.