Environmental Security of the European Cross-Border Energy Supply Infrastructure

This paper discusses the engineering and geological issues encountered during the construction of the trans-Black Sea pipeline that carries natural gas from Russia into Turkey (the Blue Stream). This project was carried out during 2001–2002 by a consortium venture by the Gazprom Co. (Russia) and the Italian ENI group; it is one of the most ambitious engineering projects undertaken in Russia in recent decades. Many technical decisions implemented in this project have no known analogues elsewhere in the world. The marine section of the route, submerged to a depth for the most part in excess of 2,000 m, posed the greatest difficulty for construction. Field studies were supplemented by a huge number of laboratory tests of seabed sediments and water samples, which provided unique data about the engineering geological conditions along the seabed route of pipeline.

Pipelines and other linear structures often cover large distances across topographically and geologically varied ground. In the last decade, or so, geological information has started to become available in digital form for countries and regions. This enables a wide-range of users, including pipeline operators, to access interpreted geohazard information not only for the construction of new linear infrastructure, but also to assess a range of geological risks to existing linear infrastructure that might have been constructed before such information was available.

Examples of the use of such information are discussed in relation to Great Britain’s national natural gas and ethylene pipeline networks and the possible raising of the Thames Estuary flood embankment that helps to protect London from flooding. Future developments in the provision of geological information are discussed, including bespoke information systems in which the outputs are defined by the users rather than the information holders.

It would be difficult to imagine the modern world without pipelines. These vital ‘energy motorways’ provide energy for a vast portion of modern society. They are used to transport natural gas for industrial purposes, public institutes and private dwellings. Gas pipelines supply the energy required for generating heat, electrical power and energy for the industry and production sector. To prevent unwanted damage to the pipelines that can cause economic losses, the pipeline industry has increased its attention to methods for identifying pipelines on potential landslide areas. Advances in geospatial sensors, data analysis methods and communication technology present new opportunities for decision-makers to increase awareness, reduce cost, facilitate innovation and create collaborative environments for addressing the challenges of security improvements and risk reduction. The aim of this paper is to focus on persistent scatterer interferometry, as one of the possible tools to detect and identify landslides or land subsidence that can pose serious hazards to pipelines. The paper also describes a pipeline network in Slovenia and exposure of pipelines to landslides together with detailed examples at the local level.

Numbers of regional natural disasters have arisen over recent decades, which can be directly attributed to the impact of unconstrained, economic development on or by the geological fabric of Central Asia. Central Asia covers the territories of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Before the political breakup of the former Soviet Union, all these countries were administered centrally. After the disintegration of the USSR, when the five republics became independent, each state determined their own political, economic and environmental procedures; it was not long before transborder environmental issues started to occur. Specifically, the lack of coordinated environmental policies led to situations where economic activities conducted in one state, created or initiated ecological consequences in neighbouring states. This paper reviews the main transborder issues principally associated with natural and man-made hazards involving waste contamination from extractive industries and water and energy resources.

Turkey has a unique geographical position between some of the world’s major oil and gas reserves and the consumers of fossil fuels in European and northern Mediterranean countries. This has resulted in Turkey acting as a so-called ‘energy bridge’ between these two regions. Consequently, several oil and gas pipelines crossing the national boundaries are already in operation or in construction. In addition to those, many others are at the planning stage.

From the geological point of view Turkey is a country that experiences a number of different types of geohazard. The potential of risks to environmental security, which will be created by the combination of a dense pipeline network and geohazards, is severe and, therefore, study and prediction of potential risks are very important. The most severe risk in Turkey is related to earthquakes. Two major strike-slip fault systems, namely the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) and the East Anatolian Fault (EAF) zones; the extensional faults in the Aegean region and some smaller active fault systems lead to very intense earthquake activity of destructive nature. The next most important potential risk is related to landslides. In regions such as the north-eastern Black Sea coast, the size and frequency of landslides is so high that Turkey suffers each year from serious losses both to buildings and infrastructure and to people in terms of death and injury. Risks from flooding are low as major Turkish rivers are flood-controlled rivers. However, local risks, particularly at where rivers or tributaries are crossed by pipelines should be taken into account.

Environmental concerns are related to pollution, which can be happen when pipelines are damaged by geohazards and oil or gas leaks into natural environment. Water reservoirs at the surface (natural lakes and dammed lakes) are particularly threatened. A similar situation also applies to underground water resources, which are, in general, found in Quaternary alluvial plains. Therefore, the close proximity of pipelines to such areas should be given closer attention.

Potential risks from geohazards are high and in the case of damage to a pipeline, the consequences will be severe. Therefore, risks have to be considered seriously during planning, construction and operational periods of oil and gas pipelines.

In this work, three relevant geohazard case-studies are described where automatic and near-real-time systems allowed the monitoring of surface displacements and deep-seated deformation. The results demonstrate that the automatic and near-real-time acquisition of measurements is important but that this concept has to be extended also to the data processing and its communication. This is particularly important in critical geohazard scenarios, where monitoring activities are fundamental to support early warning systems.

An overview is presented of a new preventive method for minimizing environmental risks based on the optimization of the location of potentially dangerous activities. The starting point of the relevant technology is the frequent presence of semi-persistent surface current patterns in many water bodies. Due to these patterns the probability of transport of dangerous substances (for example, oil pollution) from different open sea areas to vulnerable regions often becomes highly variable. For certain offshore areas this probability is relatively small and (re)directing activities to these areas would involve very limited additional costs. Principles, key components and applications of a prototype method for the identification of such areas and for their use in environmental management of shipping, offshore and coastal engineering activities are described. The core idea is to identify and quantify the potential of different offshore domains to serve as a source of danger to the vulnerable areas through pollution transport by various met-ocean drivers. An approximate solution to this inverse problem of pollution propagation is obtained by means of statistical analysis of a large number of solutions to the direct problem of propagation of tracers in terms of so-called Lagrangian trajectories. The offshore domains are quantified in terms of the probability of the current-driven adverse impact reaching the near-shore after an accident has happened or, alternatively, in terms of time until this impact (for example, an oil spill) reaches the coast. Variations of this method can be used, for example, for estimates of risks of the offshore activities in the open ocean, for fairway design and for the prediction of the most frequently hit near-shore domains.

Underground excavation techniques have become safer, cheaper and faster. Governments of European countries and certain industrial sectors have shown to be prepared to make long-term investments in finding environmentally friendly solutions to resolve infrastructural problems in urban areas resulting from economic growth and increased urbanisation. These two developments have been responsible for a significant increase in European underground infrastructure in the past three decades. An even more spectacular growth can be witnessed in China since 2000. In this paper the use of the subsurface is described against a geological and geotechnical background. In addition, due attention is given to legislation related to underground development. Current legislation in EU countries and beyond is far from adequate to resolve legal issues concerning subsurface structures. In this paper legislation relevant to environmental aspects of subsurface infrastructural elements, and the apparent lack of proper legislative frameworks in this field at national and supra-national (EU) levels, is highlighted. As most indicators point to a more intensive use of the subsurface over the next few decades, geological and legislative constraints will become more and more decisive factors in enabling its optimal use.

The term of energy security has evolved since the oil shocks of the 1970s and the concept of environmental security was used in the political debates and the scientific discourse since 1989 when the Cold War was winding down. The key thesis of this chapter is that since the early 1990s the concept of security has been fundamentally reconceptualized: It was widened (from the narrow political and military focus to include also the economic, societal and environmental dimensions), deepened (by broadening the reference object from the state [in national and international security] to human beings and humankind [in human security]) and it was sectorialized [by creating many sectoral concepts of food, water, health, soil, climate security et al.].

This chapter primarily reviews this reconceptualization of the security concept that has direct implications for the understanding of the notions of environmental security (a new dimension) and energy security (a sectoral concept). This chapter also briefly discusses potential applications for the European cross-border energy supply infrastructure (e.g. of oil and gas pipelines) linking Russia, the Central Asian states and the MENA region with energy-deficient European countries. Oil and gas pipelines face a dual challenge of both geophysical (earthquakes) and hydro meteorological (e.g. forest fires) natural disasters as well as deliberate attacks on them by terrorist groups (e.g. in Iraq and in Algeria), and new political problems between Russia, the Ukraine and NATO countries. This chapter addresses selected environmental security challenges and impacts of both globalization and global environmental change (GEC), environmental security tasks and tools and possible environmental security applications and conceivable forms of institutionalization; it will conclude with a brief discussion of the potential contribution of integrated environment monitoring systems for the cross border energy supply infrastructure. The contextual change of the implications of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula for pan-European energy security will remain a key political and security challenge for the future relations between NATO countries and Russia.

In this paper, the term “Synoriology” (Συνοριολογία) is proposed for first time. It is a composite term, derived from the Greek words syn (συν = plus) + orio (όριο = border, frontier, limit, boundary) + logia (λογία, from λόγος = scientific discourse). This term may comprise the theoretical and practical research into all kinds of boundaries (physical, mathematical, social, cultural etc.).

Establishing an integrated environmental monitoring system for any cross-border infrastructure is clearly a difficult problem. This paper aims to explore the risks and difficulties involved in such projects from the point of view of Synoriology, indicating that the establishment of major technological components involves certain mathematical approaches.

One key question is controlling and securing environmental stability during and after the construction of a technical project, both spatially and functionally. Other issues may also be examined, such as land-use planning around a site’s area, emergency response measures etc.

This work takes into account results of various European Union-funded programs on cross-border infrastructure, as well as the author’s own research on these issues.

It gradually becomes clear that statistical approaches should constitute only the basic steps towards integrated monitoring and management systems.

New avenues now open in the field of environment and energy. There is a need for education and training about infrastructures, materials, monitoring systems etc. These new avenues certainly require sound and peaceful planning procedures, along with a spirit of mutual understanding and good will.

The policy of the Republic of Bulgaria in the fields of energy utilisation and diversification, oil and gas transport, cross-boundary energy cooperation and regional environmental protection are presented in this paper.

The results of long-term direct observations of the natural, disastrous processes in the high altitude zone of the mountains of North-West Inner Asia are presented. The Tavan-Boghd-Ola mountain massif is the model investigation area, where observations of periglaciation and modern glaciation have been made by geographers of St-Petersburg State University since 1999. The main aim of the work is to study the causes and mechanisms of formation of mud flows in connection with glacial dynamics and climatic factors. Glaciated terrain on the north slope of the massif lost about 11 % of its area between 1962 and 2002. In the period 1999–2002 glacial retreat was accompanied by the development of thermokarst phenomena – rapid uncovering of buried ice from moraine, fluvioglacial and limnoglacial sediments. In 2002–2009 the glaciers lost about 12 % of their area, due to degradation in the ice divide areas and retreat of the glaciers. Four types of mud flow mechanism have been identified in the periglacial zone. Weakening of thermokarst processes due to lower annual temperatures is likely to cause a decrease in the hazard from periglacial mud flows.

This study presents the results of measurements of horizontal displacement for a large landslide located in a mountainous area in Southern Bulgaria that was most active in 2000. The landslide has an extensive area of 1.6 km². For that reason it was very difficult to define the magnitude of the horizontal displacement and even its direction for a long period of time.

Aerial and satellite images with very high resolution (VHR), acquired before and after the landslide began to move, were used to measure the horizontal movement of the landslide. The aerial photos were acquired in 1996 and the WorldView-1 satellite image was acquired in 2008. Both images were subject to photogrammetric processing for orthorectification purposes. The aerial photos were mosaiced to produce an overall orthophotoplan.

The horizontal displacements that occurred during the period between the two acquisitions were established by measurement of the differences in the coordinates of objects identified on both images. The average length of the horizontal vectors between the two locations was 27–28 m, while the maximum was up to 40 m. A landslide displacement value map was composed.

This paper describes the types of additional geodata, which can be used to supplement ‘standard’ data sets relating to landslides; these additional data enable more precise assessments of the landslide hazard and the associated potential risk. Importantly, this research has investigated the resonant response of landslide masses to a range of seismically generated wave spectra impact (that is, ground vibrations with different amplitude and frequency). The study included observing the impact of low frequency vibrations from distant earthquakes on landslip masses and the plastic strains of slopes subject to microseisms and micro earthquakes. An analysis of landslide mass transport by means of correlating start heights to strains distances ratios, was undertaken using a conceptual ‘drop model’. This analysis also showed the intensity of seismicity needed to ‘trigger’ or initiate a landslip mass. The results from these analyses are in a qualitative agreement with the field observations made in some seismically active regions. The calculations used, employ ‘frames’ of the round cylinder method; this enables estimates of landslide stability, information that greatly facilitates landslide hazard assessment. Having an indication of the probability of a landslide (at any stage of formation up until the actual slide), as well as knowledge about the slide mass, mass transport, slope contours, the area likely to be affected, the Froude number and the likelihood of secondary phenomena such as floods and mudflows enables a more complete assessment of the landslide hazard and greatly assists design and engineered risk reduction measures.

This paper is focused on current environmental problems that are frequently mentioned at scientific meetings such as seminars, conferences, workshops and in guidelines, not only for specific countries and regions but also at the continental and global level. It is important to highlight those environmentalists, in general, and the societies in which they live, in particular, are facing up to these environmental problems. Apart from the region of Shkodra, in Albania, the analysis carried out take into consideration some of the main environmental problems that are encountered in those areas on the border between Albania and Montenegro. Special attention is given to the role of information systems, set up in Albania and Montenegro, and the environmental problems identified by academic experts concerning Shkodra, in Albania, and Podgorica, in Montenegro, which are scientific centers for biodiversity research in the two countries, as well as the role of central and local governments.