GEOSPATIAL MAPS

When dealing in the complex interplay among people and the communities they comprise, the natural resources they depend on, the work that pays the bills and the global industries that bear on their lives, data matters. This is the guiding principle behind a new analytical resource from the Permian Energy Development Lab: a pair of online, interactive maps designed to help researchers, policymakers and the public better visualize the underlying variables that make the Permian Basin what it is, its communities and resources—natural and industrial alike.

The maps reflect our belief that the most effective way to bring data to life is in a visual, comprehensive manner. Presenting, for example, a view of solar and wind potential alongside transmission infrastructure. Or at a more elemental level, blending into a single map a view of Permian Basin aquifers alongside data showing how much produced water is being injected back into the land.

Those are just two examples of a wide range of data layers that our maps include. On the socioeconomic side, these layers include factors like literacy and education, poverty and employment, life expectancy and health insurance uptake. On the industrial and natural resource side, these include views of the Permian’s transportation networks, rails and roads; extractive and renewable infrastructure; geothermal and hydrogen potential; and energy transmission lines.

All this data is publicly available from different sources. Our contribution is to bring it together in a single, user-friendly platform; make it visual; and encourage people to get more out of the data by looking at it from different angles and in new and unintuitive combinations.

Perhaps most important, these maps can help us carefully evaluate the Permian's needs and resources. Many of those challenges are local – place-based, as some say – but so too are the resources to address them. And that's a reason to be optimistic about the future of the Permian Basin.

We encourage you to explore and share your feedback with us.