Vulnerability of Critical Fish Habitat to Oil and Gas Development in the Green River Basin

For the Green River Basin Landscape Conservation Design (GRB LCD) assessment, we mapped the vulnerability of the critical habitat for threatened and endangered fish species to oil and gas development for each 12-digit hydrologic unit. The following threatened and endangered fish species were included in this vulnerability assessment: Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), Bonytail Chub (Gila elegans), Humpback chub (Gila cypha), and razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus). Using a vulnerability framework, we defined Sensitivity (S) as the average combined area of critical fish habitat within HUC12 polygons. Exposure (E) to oil and gas development was quantified the log transformed upstream flow accumulation of oil and gas well points and holding ponds, inversely weighted by overland flow length. Potential Impact (PI) is the square root transformed product of oil and gas development exposure and critical fish habitat sensitivity. Adaptive Capacity (AC) for critical fish habitat was defined as the inverse flow modification from upstream reservoirs. Finally, we combined PI and AC into an overall vulnerability rank for HUC12 polygons.