Toward strategic management of shale gas development: Regional, collective impacts on water resources

► A planning-based, regional-scale approach is used to assess management of water resource impacts of deterministic events associated with shale gas drilling. ► Regional policy scenario analyses are used to assess collective impacts and their dependence on both natural and infrastructural characteristics. ► Specifically, water withdrawals and wastewater treatment in the Susquehanna River Basin of New York are examined. ► Regulating water withdrawals on the basis of stream size could provide environmental protection while minimizing the cost of oversight. ► Using private rather than public wastewater treatment facilities could achieve treatment goals while avoiding putting public systems at risk.