Adaptive Management and Planning Models for Cultural Resources in Oil and Gas Fields

Department of Energy Cooperative AgreementDE-FC26-02NT15445

PROJECT OVERVIEWPresentation to DOE-NETL, Tulsa

May 23, 2005

prepared by

Eric Ingbar

Gnomon, Inc. (Carson City, Nevada)

Mary Hopkins

Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office

Note: This overview is intended for use and release only by active project partner organizations. It is not a general public information release.

The Questions

• Can we learn more from cultural resources in oil and gas development areas?

• Could we have gained the same knowledge faster, better, cheaper? Could we have fed that information into management at more appropriate moments?

• Can the management process be more adaptive?

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note: Alaska not shown to scale

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Project Tasks – New Mexico and Wyoming

• Data Development into GIS format

• Geomorphology and site visibility

• Planning Models of site densities

• Inventory Simulations (how could we have done it better?)

• Management Recommendations (how SHOULD do we do it in the future?)

Project Activities – New Mexico and Wyoming

• Create comprehensive digital data of existing cultural resource inventories and known sites

• Create landscape models to evaluate whether attributes and distribution of sites are predictable

• Evaluate if we could have gained knowledge more rapidly

• Examine how investigation and evaluation – in the context of management – can be better staged or timed more appropriately.

Wyoming Study Area

SE New Mexico Study Area

There is something wonderful about science. One gets such a wholesale return of speculation for such a trifling investment of fact.

-- Mark Twain Life on the Mississippi

Measuring “Knowledge”

• Scientific interests vary by region

Project team assessed what is considered “important” by professionals

• Using digitized data (much of which had to be digitized first!), we assessed when “knowledge” stopped accumulating from investigations.

Watching the Needle (1)

Watching the Needle (2)

Annual Survey Acreages – Loco Hills Study Area, New Mexico

Inventory

Figure 13 Logistic regression model with 3 classes (0–3). Class 4 is outside the boundaries of the study area

Correlation logistic models by year to 2002 density

Summary – Watching the Needle Example

• Site density revealed by inventory has not changed since mid-1980’s.– Inventory could have focused on

something else since then• Predictive models would have worked as well

in 1990 as they do now.– Again, information collection could have

focused on something different

Loco Hills Knowledge

– Focus on site density as a proxy for settlement

– Survey data insufficient for analysis of temporal or functional variability in Loco Hills

– Sensitivity maps closely track geomorphological units (coppice dunes high and parabolic dunes low)• Adaptation preferences or archeological

visibility?• Further survey will probably not help to

answer this.

Adapting Management in Loco Hills

• APE- Based inventory is no longer adding any meaningful knowledge in Loco Hills. Time to pool data recovery?

• Early large-area inventory might have revealed much the same knowledge in hand now at a far lower cost

• The mandate to protect the information value of cultural resources (Criterion D of the National Register) might better be achieved through shifting to data recovery sooner

• Effective GIS data systems can reduce siting, review, and inventory costs

Wyoming Accomplishments

• Digitization of northeastern Wyoming completed – includes GIS, PDF’s, and database.

• WYCRIS revisions and upgrade. Improved user web based mapping tools.

• CRISP makes appropriate archaeological information available to managers, oil and gas for planning and assessment

• CRMTracker (web-based collaborative project tracking) in place in Wyoming with BLM FOs, consultants, and SHPO

Site Distribution

Site burial sensitivity model

Estimated extent of Holocene age alluvium deposits with a low enough energy regime to preserve archeological sites (red). Known sites with buried materials are shown as small crosses. Other sites are not shown.

Frequencies of Sites with Buried Components within each soil sensitivity model

Number of Sites with Buried Components

0

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SSURGO A SSURGO M STATSGO A STATSGO M

Model

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mb

er

of

Sit

es Very High

High

Moderate

Low

Very Low

Demo of Industry Tool – “CRISP”

Wyoming -- Cost Benefit of Automation

Industry Cost Savings:

$81,168 + 46.75 years in project delay. Industry save approximately 1 FTE per year, which is conservatively $18,700 per year in salary + $4,271 in telecommunications + $3,161 in postage + 46 years “wait time”.

Land Managing Agencies (BLM only in this example)

$34,873 + 32.5 years in project delay.Annually BLM saves approximately .7 FTE per year, which is approximately $29,705 per year in salary + $2,970 in telecommunications + $2,198 in postage + 130 years “wait time”.

Wyoming SHPO    

$101,493 + 133 years in project delay. Annually the WYSHPO saves approximately 2.85 FTE per year, which is approximately $88,918 per year in salary + $12,112 in telecommunications + $8,963 in postage + $1,500 in copy costs + 133 years “wait time”.

Pro/Con of of shared information systems:

Pros:

Resources are better managed by government

Decisions time is reduced and better justified

SHPOs are able to manage statewide information systems rather than supporting many local systems.

SHPO and agencies are able to meet NHPA mandate more effectively

Great benefits to indirect information users such as industry, planners,

and elected officials 

Cons:

Personal contact and interaction can be reduced

Assumptions or exaggerations of the data can be made – “garbage in gospel out”

Outcomes of Project

• Full GIS and data systems (useful in themselves and a necessity for analysis)

• Figure out how to implement “learn more” strategies• May involve trade-offs in investigation strategies and staging

-- a BLM and SHPO discussion• Develop field tools -- manuals and etc., to implement

revised strategies.• Utilize, where possible and feasible, the geomorphology

buried site models, erosion field indicators, and field assessment tools developed by the geomorphology and geoarchaeology team

• Involve appropriate parties in the whole process.• Focus on knowledge, not just information

Other Information Tools: CRMtracker – Tool for automation of Section 106 information stream

WYCRIS – Professional Internet Mapping System

Further information

Project Manager

Peggy Robinson

Gnomon, Inc.

probinson @ gnomon.com

775 885-2305 x250

Principal Investigator

Eric Ingbar

Gnomon, Inc.

eingbar @ gnomon.com

775 885-2305 x201