The Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Sub-basin represents one of Australia’s most significant unconventional gas prospects, where exploration must proceed under heightened scrutiny of environmental, cultural, and regulatory values. This paper introduces a Geographic Information System-driven workflow for constraints mapping that integrates statutory setbacks, ecological overlays, and operational buffers into a consistent decision-support model. The approach supports transparent and repeatable site-selection processes by building on data from the Strategic Regional Environmental and Baseline Assessment and other open datasets; translating complex constraints into a policy-aligned framework that directly supports infrastructure planning. Our workflow generates a graded suitability map to evaluate land for surface infrastructure placement. The workflow applies context-specific buffer distances to regulatory and environmental features, merges overlaps, and integrates all constraint layers into a single classified surface. A morphological filtering step then removes narrow slivers and artefacts, accounting for infrastructure geometry to generate clear construction zone envelopes. The workflow is implemented with open-source geoprocessing algorithms, runs efficiently on standard hardware, and produces outputs suitable for offline use in pre-site assessments and environmental planning. The resulting maps provide a transparent, repeatable basis for early project assessments, supporting consistent and auditable planning and environmental approvals. While demonstrated in the Beetaloo Basin, the workflow is readily adaptable to other basins and regulatory contexts, offering a transferable model for operators, regulators, and stakeholders seeking to balance energy development with environmental and cultural stewardship.
Shapoval et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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