INDUSTRY NEWS

A global perspective
on pipeline geohazards
By Moness Rizkalla, Visitless Integrity Assessment Ltd, Calgary, AB, Canada

Geohazard management practice has advanced considerably in recent years, due to several factors:
global pipeline expansion in areas of difficult terrain, coupled with a greater understanding of the
prevalence of geohazards; business and regulatory drivers promoting the proactive management of
these hazards; and, an active peer community that is enabled with ever-improving tools to better
manage this class of pipeline integrity hazards.

eohazards refer to natural

phenomena that threaten man-made
structures such as earthquakes,
landsides or floods. With pipelines, the term
refers to a wider range of environmental loads
and eects, some of which are triggered by the
pipelines construction and operations.
When assessing geohazards for an
operating or proposed pipeline, compile an
inventory of probable geohazards using the
following categories:
1. Landslides/mass movement: movements
of large volumes of soil, rock or snow
including deep seated landslides, slope
creep, debris flow and rock falls.
2. Tectonics/seismicity: fault movement and
liquefaction.
3. Hydrotechnics: watercourse and waterbody hydrodynamics including river bed
scour, lateral channel migration and
coastal inundation.

FUTURE GEOHAZARD ARTICLE TOPICS

INCLUDE:
Methodologies of pipeline
geohazard assessments
Data requirements and sources for the
assessment of pipeline geohazards
Innovations of pipeline geohazard
monitoring and mitigation.

4. Erosion and upheaval displacement:

transport of soil particles by surface water,
groundwater or wind including backfill
erosion and right-of-way erosion.
5. Geochemical: soil, rock or groundwater
chemistry including karst collapse and
acid rock drainage.
6. Freezing of unfrozen ground: freezing of
soil and groundwater including frost heave
of pipelines and the groundwater flow
interruption due to frost bulb development.
7. Thawing of permafrost terrain: thawing
of frozen soil and ground ice including
pipeline thaw settlement and thawing
slope instability.
8. Unique soil structure: potentially
detrimental soil characteristics
including pipeline indentation due to
boulders and cobbles, residual and
sensitive soils.
9. Desert mechanisms: desert conditions
such as dune migration and flash flooding.
10. Volcanic mechanisms: active volcanoes
including ash falls and lahars.
When conducting an assessment, various
actions should be undertaken when
establishing an inventory of potential
pipeline geohazards, including the following.
1. Consider a larger inventory of geohazards
during the design, route selection and
permitting stage of a pipelines life cycle

Managing your pipeline

integrity needs

42

that may later be focused on a smaller

subset to address during operations.
Pre-construction route refinements,
design mode changes (e.g. localised
above-ground installations) and design
stage mitigations can avoid, or
significantly mitigate, the associated
risks of many design-stage geohazards.
Frequently, although not globally,
landslides, hydrotechnics and tectonics
(where applicable) are the targeted
geohazard categories during operations.
2. Address the impact of geohazard
mechanisms on the ditch and right-of-way
(RoW) as well as on the pipeline. In certain
cases mitigating geohazard impacts on the
ditch and RoW is essential for ensuring the
pipelines or the environments integrity.
3. Identify and address potential combination
and triggering relationships in cases of
collocated geohazards.
While mindful of corporate responsibilities
to the environment, geohazards should be
managed from the pipeline out, as opposed
to a purely geotechnical treatment of the
hazard. Incorporating pipeline structural
capacity in evaluating geohazard probabilities
of failure is a key technical consideration,
and it becomes important to dierentiate
between longitudinal and transverses
geohazard/pipeline interaction.

Pipeline
Geohazard
Management
RoW
Encroachment
Monitoring
PIPELINES INTERNATIONAL | DECEMBER 2012