Geospatial dataset of oil wells and socio-environmental vulnerability indicators in coastal urban territories

Data on oil wells, including their identification, technical characteristics and environmental context, constitute an important input for the analysis of socio-environmental vulnerability in territories with a historical presence of hydrocarbon activity. In coastal urban contexts, population growth, urban and housing expansion, and land-use transformations have progressively increased the proximity of this infrastructure to urbanised areas, industrial zones associated with salt production, and public spaces such as roads, parks, and fishing ports. In Ecuador, the coastal canton of Salinas has approximately 228 wells drilled since the beginning of the 20th century, currently distributed in urban and rural sectors of the coastal profile. Despite their historical andterritorial relevance, geospatial datasets integrating information on oil wells with socio-environmental indicators are scarce in coastal urban territories. This study aims to develop a geospatial dataset that integrates the locations of oil wells with demographic, environmental, and urban infrastructure variables to facilitate vulnerability analysis in coastal urban territories. The information was compiled from local government technical reports and data sheets, subsequently cleaned and georeferenced using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and GPS navigation systems to validate its position and territorial context. The dataset includes 11 standardised variables, including well identification, geological formation, extraction system, well status, safety distances from oil infrastructure (oil/multi-product pipeline, wellhead, and gas pipeline), population density, proximity to urban infrastructure and sensitive ecosystems, and interference from hydrocarbon transport lines. These variables were normalised and integrated to generate a spatial vulnerability index on an ordinal scale of 1 to 10, assigned to each of the 228 wells included in the dataset. The resulting weighting indicates that 68.42% of the wells present medium to high levels of socio-environmental vulnerability. The dataset is presented in tabular and geospatial formats, structured to facilitate its reuse in environmental risk studies, socio-spatial analysis, territorial planning and comparative evaluation in other local and regional coastal urban territories with similar characteristics.