Engagement for airborne geophysical survey within a transdisciplinary baseline programme in the Eastern Cape Karoo

PUBLISHED: 29 January 2021 The biggest lesson from the recent shale gas boom in the USA – specifically in relation to monitoring and mitigating contamination of water, and community health impacts reported in receiving communities, such as the Marcellus shale regions of Pennsylvania – is the fundamental need for baseline studies prior to any proposed shale gas development.1(p.547) The USA is the largest (shale) gas producer and exporter to the European Union (EU) but it is generally accepted that, in most of the basins and shale plays in the USA in which unconventional oil and gas development has occurred, baseline studies have not been implemented.2(p.40) This phenomenon, along with its environmental monitoring and regulatory implications, led to the establishment of the Karoo Shale Gas Baseline Programme, undertaken by the Africa Earth Observation Network (AEON) – Earth Stewardship Science Research Institute (ESSRI), hereon refered to as AEON, in partnership with the Eastern Cape Provincial Government. The Programme was the first of its kind in South Africa, and produced a transdisciplinary baseline of the Karoo prior to any shale gas development in the Basin.