Deer Mountain Case Study: Integration of Pipe and Ground Monitoring Data With Historical Information to Develop a Landslide Management Plan

Author(s):  
Joel Babcock ◽  
Doug Dewar ◽  
Joel Webster ◽  
Tyler Lich

Abstract Deer Mountain is an active landslide complex near Swan Hills, AB. Pembina owns two pipelines that traverse the landslide. Prior to abandonment, four leaks occurred on the NPS 8 pipeline due to interaction of circumferential stress corrosion cracking and ground movement. The NPS 10 pipeline is operating and has not leaked, but has previously been strain relieved in several locations. To develop and execute a geohazard management plan for the operating pipeline, Pembina integrated pipe and ground monitoring data with historical information into a geographic information system. Locations of bending strain areas, strain gauges, pipe wall assessment (PWA) anomalies, slope inclinometers, and piezometers were cross-referenced with previous leak sites, historical dig sites, historical strain reliefs, and areas of shallow pipe burial. Overlaying the PWA with pre-existing pipe data allowed for identification of segments with a higher density/magnitude of suspected soil to pipe interactions. Strain monitoring, strain relief, and a surface pipeline segment were prescribed. A detailed monitoring plan was also produced for the landslide complex. This case study presents the process of integrating data, specifying monitoring/mitigative measures, and implementing strain relief at four locations. Additionally, the paper will discuss the design of the surface pipeline segment.

Author(s):  
Kevin Spencer ◽  
Wilson Santamaria ◽  
Jane Dawson ◽  
Hong Lu

The performance of older ERW pipelines has raised concerns regarding their ability to reliably transport product to market. Low toughness or “dirty” steels combined with time dependent threats such as surface breaking defects, selective corrosion and hook cracks are especially of concern in hazardous liquid pipelines that are inevitably subject to cyclic loading, increasing both the probability and rate of crack growth. The existing methods of evaluating seam weld flaws by hydrostatically testing the pipeline or In-Line Inspection (ILI) with an appropriate technology are well established. Hydrostatic testing, whilst providing a quantified level of safety is often impracticable due to associated costs, logistics and the possibility of multiple failures during the test. ILI technologies have become more sophisticated and as a result can accurately detect and size both critical and sub-critical flaws within the pipeline. However, the vast amounts of data generated can often be daunting for a pipeline operator especially when tool tolerances and future growth are required to be accounted for. For either method, extensive knowledge of the benefits and disadvantages are required to assess which is the more appropriate for a particular pipeline segment. This paper will describe advances in the interpretation of seam weld flaws detected by ILI and how they can be applied to an Integrity Management Plan. Signal processing improvements, validated by in-field verifications have enabled detailed profiles of surface breaking defects at seam welds for ERW pipelines to be determined. Using these profiles along with established fracture and fatigue analysis methods allows for reductions in the unnecessary conservatism previously associated with the assessment of seam weld flaws detected by ILI. Combining these results with other available data, e.g. dig verifications, previous hydrostatic testing records, enables more realistic and better-informed integrity and maintenance planning decisions to be made. A real case study conducted in association with a pipeline operator is detailed in the paper and quantifies the benefits that can be realised by using these advanced assessment techniques, to safely and economically manage their assets going forward.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
John Harner ◽  
Lee Cerveny ◽  
Rebecca Gronewold

Natural resource managers need up-to-date information about how people interact with public lands and the meanings these places hold for use in planning and decision-making. This case study explains the use of public participatory Geographic Information System (GIS) to generate and analyze spatial patterns of the uses and values people hold for the Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado. Participants drew on maps and answered questions at both live community meetings and online sessions to develop a series of maps showing detailed responses to different types of resource uses and landscape values. Results can be disaggregated by interaction types, different meaningful values, respondent characteristics, seasonality, or frequency of visit. The study was a test for the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service, who jointly manage the monument as they prepare their land management plan. If the information generated is as helpful throughout the entire planning process as initial responses seem, this protocol could become a component of the Bureau’s planning tool kit.


Author(s):  
Peter Behnstedt ◽  
Manfred Woidich

This chapter deals with the sedentary dialects of Egypt, excluding the bedouin dialects of Sinai and the Libyan bedouin dialects on the Mediterranean coast. It attempts to combine historical information on the settlement of Arabic tribes in Egypt with accounts of present-day Egyptian dialects and those of the regions from which those tribes came, initially Yemen and the Levant, later Hejaz, and then the Maghreb. The diversity of the Egyptian Arabic dialect area is partly explained by external factors, namely different layers of arabization over centuries. It is also explained by internal factors, namely dialect contact, which implies phenomena such as hyperdialectisms. Egypt is seen as a dialect area in its own right, but one that shows phenomena of a transitional area between the Arab East and West. A case study of Alexandria deals with dialect death. The role of substrata is discussed, but is considered negligible.


Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Andreja Đuka ◽  
Zoran Bumber ◽  
Tomislav Poršinsky ◽  
Ivica Papa ◽  
Tibor Pentek

During the seven-year research period, the average annual removal was by 3274 m3 higher than the average annual removal prescribed by the existing management plan (MP). The main reason lies in the high amount of salvage felling volume at 55,238 m3 (38.3%) in both the main and the intermediate felling due to oak dieback. The analysis of forest accessibility took into account the spatial distribution of cutblocks (with ongoing felling operations) and the volume of felled timber for two proposed factors: (1) the position of the cutblock and (2) the position of the removal. Cutblock position factor took into account the spatial position of the felling areas/sites, while removal position factor besides the spatial reference took into account the amount of felled timber (i.e., volume) both concerning forest infrastructure network and forest operations. The analysed relative forest openness by using geo-processing workflows in GIS environment showed four types of opening areas in the studied management unit (MU): single-opened, multiple-opened, unopened and opened areas outside of the management unit. Negative effects of the piece-volume law and low harvesting densities on forest operations are highlighted in this research due to high amount of salvage felling particularly in the intermediate felling by replacing timber volume that should have come from thinnings.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1270
Author(s):  
Minyoung Kwon ◽  
Erwin Mlecnik

Web portals have the potential to promote sustainable environmental ideas due to the capacity of digital media, such as easy accessibility, openness, and networking. Local authorities (LAs) are responsible for activating carbon savings in homes, and they are key actors when it comes to providing neutral information to their citizens. Local authority web portals may thus create environmental awareness, particularly regarding owner-occupied single-family home renovation. Nevertheless, the experiences of LAs developing web portals have rarely been studied. Therefore, this paper analyses the development process of various LA web modules and investigates how LAs foster modular web portals to stimulate the adoption of home renovation with parameters to assess LAs’ actions in terms of the management of web-modules development. A homeowner renovation journey model is applied to map current local authority developments. Case study research and interviews were done to analyse and evaluate the adoption of modular web portals developed and tested by six local authorities in four countries in Europe. Based on the development and use of the modular web portal, lessons have been derived emphasising the importance of co-creation, integrating with offline activities, and a strategic management plan.


Author(s):  
Vanessa Tobias ◽  

In fisheries monitoring, catch is assumed to be a product of fishing intensity, catchability, and availability, where availability is defined as the number or biomass of fish present and catchability refers to the relationship between catch rate and the true population. Ecological monitoring programs use catch per unit of effort (CPUE) to standardize catch and monitor changes in fish populations; however, CPUE is proportional to the portion of the population that is vulnerable to the type of gear used in sampling, which is not necessarily the entire population. Programs often deal with this problem by assuming that catchability is constant, but if catchability is not constant, it is not possible to separate the effects of catchability and population size using monitoring data alone. This study uses individual-based simulation to separate the effects of changing environmental conditions on catchability and availability in environmental monitoring data. The simulation combines a module for sampling conditions with a module for individual fish behavior to estimate the proportion of available fish that would escape from the sample. The method is applied to the case study of the well monitored fish species Delta Smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) in the San Francisco Estuary, where it has been hypothesized that changing water clarity may affect catchability for long-term monitoring studies. Results of this study indicate that given constraints on Delta Smelt swimming ability, it is unlikely that the apparent declines in Delta Smelt abundance are the result of changing water clarity affecting catchability.


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