Pipeline accidents are usually caused through failures, vandalizations,
or other environmental accidents like hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. Responding to industry demand, the authors recently designed an integrated system for the real-time monitoring and management of pipeline accidents in land and sea environments. This effort focused on oil, gas and other hazardous spill accidents which occurred on pipeline transportation systems.

Multi-sensor applications for pipeline failure detection and hazard monitoring can be conducted with appropriate models in GIS and internet-based communication infrastructure to provide a solution for real-time pipeline accidents contingency planning and emergency response. The system architecture includes several models in GIS environment which support disaster management and decision making through provision of various thematic maps, and a module called command and control which is designed for managing and coordinating pipeline accidents response.

Command and control system coordinates all tasks related to the accident emergency response through the management and administration office. The structure also includes a web-based accident data dissemination scheme which makes use of an internet portal. This portal acts as a communication system to connect accident managers in the administration office with accident relief personnel and operators on the ground. These new approaches make use of geomatics applications for pipeline accident emergency response, and can be implemented in other accidental hazard monitoring and management in the environment.

Pipelines and the environment

Pipelines have become an efficient means of transporting liquid and gaseous materials particularly crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas for long distances over land, underground, and sub-sea from production locations to the market. However, a ruptured pipeline has the potential of doing serious environmental damage since most of the products being transported are environmentally hazardous if spilled.

The potential for significant spills increases as the world’s existing infrastructure of pipelines ages; additional lines are added; and as oil and gas exploration and production activities shift from the more established and better environmentally monitored areas in North America and western Europe to frontier areas in less developed parts of the world. As the fact that most of these accidental spills have serious environmental impacts, there is a need to establish an appropriate and efficient system for pipeline accident monitoring, management and emergency response which require implementation of various models and technologies.

There are varieties of computer-based modeling and management system developed for pipeline accidents. Most of these systems are working off-line and the results are not in real time. These systems are disjointed with few functionalities, and cover only a part of the of pipeline accident emergency concept. Diversity of databases with different data storage formats makes it difficult to join these systems for operating pipeline accident contingency. Therefore, an operator’s pipeline accident contingency development plans are often hampered by incompatibility of platforms, database formats and systems configuration. As a consequence, operating these systems makes the procedures for pipeline accident response complicated, costly, inefficient and time consuming. The current oil and gas pipeline transportation scheme needs:

• A single umbrella of control and administration for efficient and effective pipeline accident management.

• Operational multi-agency system and framework for early warning, monitoring, and relief.

• Communication infrastructure for real-time data capture and dissemination for policy and directions.

• An institutionalized comprehensive framework to strengthen preventive, monitoring and mitigation measures.

• Comprehensive pipeline accident early warning and alert mechanisms.

• Wide-ranging decision supports for quick emergency responses.

• Improved real-time communication and information sharing between responsible agencies.

This effort was designed to demonstrate an optimal design method based on the needs mentioned for pipeline accident monitoring and management. This method would cover all proceedings of monitoring and assessment as well as emergency response before, during and after an accident occurred. It introduced an integrated geomatics-based solution for operational pipeline accident monitoring and management. The aim was to reduce cost and time and facilitate operational pipeline accident emergency response using geomatics and remote sensing tools, computer software, and web based technology.

System components

Major components in the pipeline accidents monitoring, management and emergency response structure includes the database, early warning and monitoring system, application modules, command and control and communication systems. Figure 1 demonstrates major components of the system. Each component is involved with certain functionalities in the process of a pipeline accident response:

• Alert System; provides early warning information in real-time.

• Databases; serves all the information for modeling pipeline accident.

• Application Modules; provides all necessary accident information through modeling and simulations.

• Command and Control System; enables pipeline accident management and administration.

• Communication System; allows mutual communication to disseminate data among authorized personnel and pipeline accident responders in the field.

The system receives information about current situation of pipelines environment through satellite images, airborne data and ground surveys or devices. This information could be linked to any ancillary data that are used for accident modeling and situational analysis like weather data in real time through anchor agencies who are custodians of such information. Such facilities are provided through internet web technology which is currently the key for data communication in real-time. This data can be linked directly to the central repository or database.

Alert system

One of the major functionalities of the system for rapidly responding to pipeline accidents is provision of early warning information. These approaches are based on the utilization of GIS, remotely sensed data and other monitoring technologies like deployed sensors and observant systems. The system will receive information about pipeline accident location through its communication infrastructure. For pipeline accidents monitoring, three levels of risk or early warning are defined as long term, medium term and short term. Medium and long term early warnings refer to the information about risk identification, assessment and monitoring. Subsequently, the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) map along the pipeline zone serves as a long term early warning for pipeline oil spill accidents. Trajectory modeling and simulation results over an ESI map yields a medium-term risk or early warning for pipeline oil spill accidents. Medium early warning shows potential area at risk through current accident. The early warning functionality that rises from real time detection and monitoring sensors provides short term early warning for pipeline accidents.

The capability of remote sensing techniques in monitoring different environmental changes and the possibility to reach areas not easily accessible make it a very useful tool for monitoring of pipeline accidents in all environments. Sensor developments include a new generation of high-resolution commercial satellites which provide unique levels of accuracy in spatial, spectral and temporal attributes, facilitate efficient monitoring and early warning for pipeline accidents. In addition to the high resolution panchromatic imagery illustrated in Figure 1, there are a number of other commercial imagery products that are potentially applicable to pipeline transportation monitoring infrastructure. They include air borne and satellite radar, LIDAR, multi-spectral, and hyper-spectral sensors.

The system emphasizes the application of remotely sensed data including SAR, Hyperspectral and laser UV fluorescence (LIDAR) images, since the main advantage of SAR data is its capability to cover large areas of the earth surface in all weather and times. These capabilities are in addition to the ability of the Hyperspectral and laser UV fluorescence (LIDAR) sensors, which provide detailed information about pipeline failures in both offshore and onshore areas.

Databases

An integrated database for situational analysis and pipeline accident modeling is required for the system. Databases include all the tabular and spatial data required for pipeline accident modeling as well as all thematic products and output information from the models. The database feeds accident models with input data from various agencies and departments who are custodians for essential information required for pipeline accident modeling, assessment and emergency response. Some of this information like weather data and sea states (in case the pipeline is under water) will be linked to the database in real time, whereas other pre-existed data are available in the database for analysis. Table 1 lists the major spatial and tabular information and thematic products required in pipeline accident database. All processed data from accident modeling and analysis will be saved into the database and ready to be retrieved by accident relief team.

Pipeline accident models

Information about accident locations, trajectory, risk area, damaged area and emergency response are critical for pipeline accident management. There are many models that have been developed in GIS to support pipeline accident emergency response like Aloha and SMIS, and IDOR2D. There are also existing models that are not developed in a GIS platform but the outputs from those are compatible with various GIS engines, such as the Oil Spill Information System (OSIS), the Oil Spill Risk Analysis (OSRA) model, the General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment system (GNOME), the Dense Gas Dispersion Model (DEGADIS) and Atmospheric Dispersion Model for Denser-Than-Air Releases (SLAB). Regardless of which application modules are used for modeling and analysis of the accident, the products can be incorporated into the integrated pipeline accident management, operation and administration system database using ESRI’s ArcSDE and Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) software. ArcSDE is an advanced geographic application server for relational databases. It allows managing geographic information in database server and serving data to all ArcGIS applications for creating output products. FME has the ability to integrate a variety of geographic features with geographic information analysis software. Command and Control system implements the output results from modeling and analysis modules in emergency response through portal system. Pipeline accident products can be generated using online data immediately after accident declared. The application models, output products and their functionalities in pipeline accident monitoring and management system are presented in Table 1. The results will be evaluated and stored back into the database through the Command and Control unit.

Command and control system

Command and control system facilitates pipeline accident management, operation and administration based on output products from accident models. Components and functionalities of the command and control system are presented in Table 2. Relevant accident modeling products (Thematic maps or data) can be loaded through communication system (Internet Portal) as references for accident emergency responders. In addition, relevant instructions and tasks from command and control can be sent to the players using emails or massages through the portal system. For each authorized team there are existed pre-designed forms in command and control system enabling to assign tasks and coordinate accident relief process.

Communications system

The core of communications system is an internet portal to manage all incoming and outgoing transactions, and to enable real-time communication among the accident players including management, operation and administration. The portal can also be used to support distribution of data to other parties and agencies like various environmental agencies, local administrators, tourism agencies or fishermen and other parties that may be involved with the accident.

Portal managers will serve the needs of emergency that includes on-scene commander and management of the personnel in the field. Their main task is to organize all field activities and providing suitable support for activity planning, logistics and other resources. They may be from different organizations such as control centers, civil protection, local administrators, technical or scientific personnel or operators in a call center. These are all accessible through portal system to any computer and mobile systems like cell phone and PDA that connected to internet.

Software and hardware configuration

Figure 2 shows the main software and hardware proposed for integrated pipeline accident management, operation and administration system. It includes the following components:

Accident data processing modules. This includes all software required for pipeline accident modeling and data processing. ArcGIS and Geomatica are the most popular software systems for spatial data processing and image analysis as well as pipeline accident data modeling.

Central repository system. This includes computer servers and database storage server able to store geo-spatial data as well as non spatial data. The servers contain ArcGIS license manager, ArcSDE and FME software. Arc SDE is on top of ArcGIS for two way data transition from application development and database servers. FME as data exchange system can extract, translate, transform, integrate and distribute spatial data in over 200 GIS, CAD, raster and database formats.

Command and control system. This is the bridge between portal system, data processing module and central repository system. It is involved with the flow of spatial data and information through ArcGIS and Internet based GIS in portal through ArcIMS. Data from command and control system can be sent through portal using Domain Name Server (DNS) and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

Portal system. Manages all incoming and outgoing transactions. The portal server structure is based on JAVA Enterprise Edition 1.4, which defines the standard for developing multi-tier enterprise applications. J2EE simplifies enterprise applications by basing them on standardized, modular components, by providing a complete set of services to those components, and by handling many details of application behavior automatically. Portal systems are equipped with Messaging Server, DNS and LDAP.

Messaging server. It is a high-performance and highly secure messaging platform that provides extensive security features to help ensure the integrity of communications through user authentication, session encryption, and the appropriate content filtering to help prevent spam and viruses. The Messaging Server provides secure, reliable messaging services for entire accident players and command and control communities.

DNS server. The DNS server provides fast, secure, high-speed and high-bandwidth multiple Web transactions connectivity and networking.

LDAP server. The LDAP server provides a central repository for storing and managing identity profiles, access privileges, application and network resource information.

System analysis

The system is designed to evaluate capability of pipeline accident emergency response through a core operation and administration system in management centre. It provides early warning, detection and monitoring for pipeline accidents and facilitates mitigation in the event of disaster. The system includes pipeline accident models designed to produce situational information through thematic products for emergency response.

Through download and upload utilities in portal, the system receives data from relevant agencies. These data will be saved in the central repository system as database. These data may need pre processing before utilization by accident models. For remotely sensed data, pre-processing may include geo-referencing image enhancement, vectorization, interpretation, features extraction and data format conversion. After pre processing, the input data will proceed for post processing by specific models in accident data processing modules. Various types of thematic output products will be generated through this process.

One of the major advantages of this system as compared to other existing systems is its command and control module. This module serves as an operation and administration office and enables accident responders to have enhanced decision supports for quick emergency responses. Command and control module includes but is not limited to following subcomponents:

• Alert System: Using Email, SMS through Portal

• Accident Operation: Situational Reporting, Request For Resources, Fill in Command Forms

• Accident Declaration: Incident Report, Red Alert, Thematic Products

• Correspondence: Notification, SMS, Email, Contract Directory, Discussion Board

• Database Administration: Inventory Management, Organization Management, Facility Management, Human Resource Management, Document Management

• Accident Administration: Assign Privileges, Resource Management, Task Management, Activate Operation Centers.

Having a mutual communication through internet portal is another advantage of this system design. The system can also implement other communication infrastructures. Time to time situational data from fields or accident players can be sent to the pipeline accident operation and administration office for evaluation, updating thematic products and decision making. The portal system facilitates all functionalities described for command and control system through forms, reports, emails, massages and other utilities. It is simply a web page with several security levels which allows accessibility of different parties for accident relief. Portal system is core communication system between all parties involved with the accident. The system design is flexible for adding any other functionality needed for supporting pipeline accident. n

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge and express their thanks for financial support for this research from GEOIDE (Canadian Geomatics for Informed Decisions) NCE (Networks of Centers of Excellence) and NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) of Canada. Based on a paper presented at ASME’s 7th International Pipeline Conference, held September 29-October 3, 2008, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.