The latest annual reports under a long-running study into the cumulative socio-economic impacts and benefits of coal seam gas developments in Australian towns has been published by the UQ Gas & Energy Transition Research Centre.
The project, which began in 2012, has been producing freely available online annual reports since 2015. It utilises a suite of metrics that were originally chosen by local leaders, government and industry to assess the social and economic trends and outcomes in towns in the vicinity of CSG developments. The metrics used include population, unemployment, income, housing costs, crime rates and more. Trends and changes in the indicators are then ‘ground-truthed’ through interviews with local people to understand interactions between indicators and provide a locally relevant, system perspective of change.
The research originally focused on areas in the Western Downs region, which has been home to extensive CSG developments since the late 2000s, but has expanded to include communities in Central and Southern Queensland and New South Wales.
UQ Gas & Energy Transition Research Centre Director and project lead Associate Professor Katherine Witt said the long-running project puts longitudinal town-level data that would otherwise be difficult to compile directly into the hands of decisionmakers.
“The growth of the onshore gas industry in Australia has had a significant effect on the socio-economic realities of regional towns across the east coast,” said A/Prof Witt.
“By bringing together data and narrative on population, employment, income, housing and community wellbeing at the town level, this project helps decisionmakers elevate their analysis of those impacts beyond anecdotal evidence so they can respond to change with confidence”
Associate Professor Kathy Witt
Centre Director
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“The data used in this project is also integrated into an online tool we have developed, which provides a practical method for comparing towns, identifying emerging trends, distinguishing short-term pressures from long-term change, and framing impacts within broader economic and industrial trends.”
Click the markers on the interactive map below to read a town's latest report
