Characterize Actual and Future Impact of California's Drought on Three-component Ground Deformations and their Influence on the Natural Gas Infrastructure
Demonstrating a novel methodology for 3-D monitoring of drought-induced land subsidence to prevent impacts to critical natural gas infrastructure.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Recipient
Berkeley, CA
Recipient Location
9th
Senate District
14th
Assembly District
$1,599,584
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
LBNL initially planned to deploy a 3D subsurface borehole deformation monitoring tool, which records ground deformation data in conjunction with other monitoring techniques in a well drilled with funding from PG&E. The PG&E funded well had to be abandoned due to a wellbore casing failure. Due to COVID restrictions and funding challenges, LBNL has been unable to drill another well. However, LBNL has been able to use hydromechanical modeling to draw their conclusions. LBNL is estimating a future drought scenario based on a review of the Groundwater Sustainability Plan submitted by the Groundwater Sustainability Agency to the Department of Water Resources. This will further efforts to predict potential pipeline damage and gauge mitigation strategies in the face of drought. LBNL has submitted their Draft Final Report for review.
The Issue
The recent drought in California led to increased groundwater pumping in the Central Valley that, in turn, has resulted in land subsidence. Vertical and lateral ground movements unequally affect natural gas infrastructure. The lateral component poses the greatest risk to the pipelines. Currently, only the vertical-component of land deformation field is considered in subsidence monitoring and modeling efforts led by Department of Water Resources, natural gas investor-owned utilities (IOUs), and scientists. The proposed research will consider all three components (two horizontal and one vertical) of ground subsidence to inform risk-based decision making.
Project Innovation
This study characterizes the impact of California's drought related subsidence on natural gas infrastructure in the San Joaquin Basin. The goal of this research project is to develop and demonstrate a new methodology to more accurately identify areas with relatively high risk of potential natural gas infrastructure damage due to subsidence and the identification of potential remedial actions. The main innovation and advantages within this project are the combination of large-scale state-of-the-art remote sensing surveys linked with advanced modeling and inverse analysis of three-component (one vertical and two horizontal) ground deformation. Specifically, the study involves ground deformation monitoring, infrastructure damage evaluation, water pumping and geologic data evaluation, and coupled groundwater flow and geomechanical modeling to enable natural gas utilities to predict areas of potential future drought-related subsidence and to estimate risk of damage to infrastructure.
Project Benefits
The project will result in a technology that allows for more accurate predictions of the impact of subsidence on natural gas infrastructure through analysis of three-component ground deformations imaged by satellite-based land surface monitoring. This technology could be adopted by natural gas IOUs. A more accurate predictive capability will enable drought-related subsidence to be forecasted with greater confidence, leading to increased safety, lower costs, and environmental benefits.

Affordability
This project will help enable natural gas IOUs to take early preventative engineering measures to prevent failure, thus lowering mitigation costs and benefiting natural gas ratepayers.

Environmental Sustainability
Early prevention of natural gas infrastructure failure will help to minimize methane leaks and reduce associated GHG emissions.

Safety
Inform risk-based decisions on preventative engineering actions to protect the infrastructure before it experiences damaging surface strains, thereby safeguarding against abrupt failure and gas leaks.
Key Project Members

Jonny Rutqvist
Subrecipients

Infra Terra, Inc.

Match Partners

Pacific Energy Center - PG&

E
