Oil Development on Alaska's Arctic Slope

This map depicts the area in which oil development (well, pipelines, roads, pads) sprawls out over the entire Arctic Region of Alaska.

Oil development on Alaska's Arctic Slope has affected over 4700 square kilometers, including 2764 square kilometers of roads, drilling pads and pipelines, and 1942 square kilometers of exploratory drilling.

To determine the area affected by oil development, buffers were calculated around existing infrastructure (eg. pipelines, pads, and roads) and exploratory wells. Based on studies of caribou response, a 4 kilometer buffer around existing infrastructure and a 2 kilometer buffer around exploratory wells was used to estimate the area affected by these developments.

Map by David Pray.

Download the PDF (oil_dev.pdf, 1.3 MB)