The American Southwest, which has also seen gas drilling, is home to a variety of reptiles with fairly specific habitat needs that could be disrupted by gas drilling. In this case, the concern was that roads would alter the geomorphology of blowing sand dunes, thus altering and eliminating the habitat of these reptiles. One study of six lizard species found no indication that the access roads altered the size or area of the sand dune features. Though higher abundance of all six species
was positively correlated with the amount of area, abundance was not correlated with the presence or absence of access roads or drilling activity.