The Effect of Geographic Proximity to Unconventional Oil and Gas Development on Public Support for Hydraulic Fracturing

Abstract

With the rapid growth of unconventional oil and natural gas development transforming the U.S. economic and physical landscape, social scientists have increasingly explored the spatial dynamics of public support for this issue-that is, whether people closer to unconventional oil and gas development are more supportive or more opposed. While theoretical frameworks like construal-level theory and the "Not in My Backyard" (or NIMBY) moniker provide insight into these spatial dynamics, case studies in specific locations experiencing energy development reveal substantial variation in community responses. Larger-scale studies exploring the link between proximity and support have been hampered by data quality and availability. We draw on a unique data set that includes geo-coded data from national surveys (nine waves; n = 19,098) and high-resolution well location data to explore the relationship between proximity and both familiarity with and support for hydraulic fracturing. We use two different measures of proximity-respondent distance to the nearest well and the density of wells within a certain radius of the respondent's location. We find that both types of proximity to new development are linked to more familiarity with hydraulic fracturing, even after controlling for various individual and contextual factors, but only distance-based proximity is linked to more support for the practice. When significant, these relationships are similar to or exceed the effects of race, income, gender, and age. We discuss the implications of these findings for effective risk communication as well as the importance of incorporating spatial analysis into public opinion research on perceptions of energy development.

Public Preferences in a Shifting Energy Future: Comparing Public Views of Eight Energy Sources in North America’s Pacific Northwest

“…We found evidence suggesting that respondents from the same county/districts felt somewhat similarly toward the various energy sources, though our model did not account for what specific local factors might be responsible for this. Previous work has found that local significance of energy industries can favorably influence residents' perceptions of those energy sources, and even unfavorable influence their perception of new or different energy sources [72,87,89,92]. In this study, we found that perceived local economic importance of energy industries was related to all energy types except nuclear, though we caution that our measure was based on respondent perception.…”

“…Next, we estimated eight random intercept mixed effects regression models (one per energy source) to analyze the significant predictors of support. Regression modeling is widely used in environmental survey research [55,87,92,112] because it provides a method for understanding how certain social characteristics (such as education or political ideology) may relate to individuals' views on environmental topics. Using mixed effects modeling (also known as multilevel modeling) allowed us to account for possible unobserved heterogeneity at different spatial levels (known as random effects), in this case, county (or Canadian district) and state (or Canadian province).…”

“…Using mixed effects modeling (also known as multilevel modeling) allowed us to account for possible unobserved heterogeneity at different spatial levels (known as random effects), in this case, county (or Canadian district) and state (or Canadian province). A mixed effects modeling approach helps account for similarities (if there are any) between respondents living in the same county/district or state/province [118] and is an increasingly common approach for analyzing spatially-dependent survey data [72,92,[119][120][121][122][123]. We used ordinal logistic regression modeling instead of ordinary least squares linear regression modeling because our dependent variables were categorical and not normally distributed (Supplementary Materials).…”

“…In terms of "place" factors, geographic and contextual factors influence public views about different energies. Spatial variation in public energy attitudes has been found relating to the prominence of energy industries in the local/regional economy [72,87], perceptions about the economic and/or cultural significance of those industries [88][89][90][91], and individuals' distance from sites of energy extraction or production [92][93][94][95]. Generally, the literature has shown that proximity has a positive effect, that is, individuals living closer to sites of energy extraction and production are more supportive, though this relationship may not hold for proposed (as opposed to existing facilities) or renewable energy technologies and causality is unclear (i.e., does support precede or follow development?).…”

How distance influences dislike: Responses to proposed fracking in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland

“…In the United States, research has shown a direct, positive relationship between proximity to development and support (i.e. closer to development = more support) (Boudet et al, 2018;Gravelle and Lachapelle, 2015;Howell et al, 2017;Junod and Jacquet, 2019;Zanocco et al, 2019). Nevertheless, other research reveals no direct independent effect from geospatial proximity on support for fracking (Alcorn et al, 2017;Boudet et al, 2016;Davis and Fisk, 2014;Mayer, 2016), and Clarke et al (2016) even provide evidence of a weak but significant inverse relationship (i.e.…”