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Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves pumping high-pressure fluids underground to create tiny cracks in rock to release natural gas or oil.

Winter’s research came after a Council of Canadian Academies report in June 2014 suggested the scale and pace of hydraulic fracturing was challenging the ability to assess and manage environmental effects.

It suggested the industrial activity could threaten groundwater and concluded that it may have greater climate-change impacts than previously thought because of natural gas leaking from wells.

Photo by Courtesy: Jennifer Winter

Winter’s latest research shows that the knowledge gaps haven’t been closed — although she said it is progressing.

“It’s difficult for regulators and policy-makers to keep up with research on hydraulic fracturing to set regulations and enforce policy,” she said.

For example, scientific research has recently shown that earthquakes are being caused by fracturing itself rather than putting the wastewater back into the ground.

“We have this shift of what we know, so now policy and regulation has to adapt,” said Winter. “It’s a very difficult space for policy-makers to be in with incomplete knowledge.

“It’s incomplete knowledge and the fact that they run the risk of creating the wrong rules.”

As a result, she said it’s not surprising that some eastern Canadian provinces such as New Brunswick have put a moratorium on fracking.

“In Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba, we’ve had oil and gas development for a long time so the public has a better sense of what the risks and rewards are,” she said. “In jurisdictions without substantial oil and gas development, you see numbers on paper but there’s no context.”