Disrupting Geohazard Management
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, and hurricanes have a devasting impact on communities. They destroy not only above-ground infrastructure, but also buried infrastructure such as pipelines. After hurricane Ida struck the coastline of Louisiana in 2021, oil spills of several miles long were seen in the Gulf of Mexico. Extreme climatic events are forecast to intensify in frequency and intensity due to the effect of global warming. This threat is taken seriously by governing authorities and specific legislation was promulgated to ensure swift action is taken to protect local communities. The new PHMSA Mega rule Part 2, which went into effect in 2020, requires operators to inspect pipelines within 72 hours of an extreme weather event.
Although pipeline operators cannot control the weather, they can assess the mechanical integrity of their buried pipeline networks. Current methods are either indirect, correlating surface measurements and potential pipeline mechanical strain, or direct, with actual pipeline measurement through the launch of an inline inspection (ILI) tool fitted with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). One indirect method is rapid to deploy, but relies on secondary data and statistical models to obtain information about the pipeline. Another method, based on ILI, is direct but entails significant logistical constraints making it difficult to be deployed within a short time frame.
