Geo-information services for pipeline operators: Ground motion monitoring and route planning from space.

This three year integrated remote sensing and pipeline industry project has been approved by the European Space Agency as part of the Earth Observation Service Market Development Activities programme. The project is being led by Nigel Press Associates Ltd in collaboration with eight partners.

In addition to its project management and market development expertise NPA will supply, in its role as a data distributor, very high resolution satellite imagery, digital elevation models and 3D visualisation as well as airborne imagery and LiDAR. In addition, NPA will provide its expertise in processing radar data to detect millimetric ground movement using interferometric SAR technology.

The long term objective of the project is to implement and validate an integrated service chain using earth observation data to help efficiency and cost saving for pipeline companies. The three main aims are:

• To improve available ground motion information when siting new pipelines.
• To monitor potentially hazardous ground motion in close proximity to existing pipelines and infrastructure, including processing plants.
• Development of the market for optimising planned pipeline routes and locating potential hazards associated with pipelines and infrastructure.

The project team will work in close co-operation with pipeline companies in order to provide the most appropriate integrated and easily accessible system for supplying geo-information that encompasses their requirements. This will ensure that the commercial and economic utility of the service is within the price sensitive limits of the pipeline industry and the alternatives available to them.

A key component of the project is to execute pre-commercial trials to test and validate the service. These will be undertaken in locations requested by pipeline companies and will use a selection of established EO techniques, in particular, radar interferometry and very high resolution optical data.

The multi-skilled team of nine partners have built strong working relationships over a number of years within previous projects (PRESENSE and ESA EOMD) has particular experience in the EO industry (NPA, Definiens and TeleRilevamento Europa) and pipeline consultancy industry (EBA Engineering Consultants, Terra Map Server, Advantica, MITEC), and significant support from end user pipeline companies (Ruhrgas), in addition the British Geological Survey are acting as science reviewer.