Corrosion is the biggest enemy of transmission pipelines. According to PHSMA, about 40% of pipeline damage and leakage is the direct result of corrosion, and other types of pipeline damage, such as excavation and natural force damage, are also highly associated with pipeline corrosion and can be easily triggered. Overall, soil corrosivity is the key and influences the degree of corrosion that happens on a pipeline.
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In this section, the objective is to determine the soil corrosivity and assess the corrosion risks of pipelines by developing a continuous soil corrosivity index surface by using ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro in Harris County. Given the fact that soil corrosivity is influenced by a number of different soil properties at different levels, multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) was used as the technique to determine soil corrosivity in Harris County.
Corrosion is the biggest enemy of transmission pipelines. According to PHSMA, about 40% of pipeline damage and leakage is the direct result of corrosion, and other types of pipeline damage, such as excavation and natural force damage, are also highly associated with pipeline corrosion and can be easily triggered. Overall, soil corrosivity is the key and influences the degree of corrosion that happens on a pipeline.
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In this section, the objective is to determine the soil corrosivity and assess the corrosion risks of pipelines by developing a continuous soil corrosivity index surface by using ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro in Harris County. Given the fact that soil corrosivity is influenced by a number of different soil properties at different levels, multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) was used as the technique to determine soil corrosivity in Harris County.
The lack of preparedness of local governments and energy companies led to this serious state-wide power outage and energy crisis. Therefore, to prevent similar series of disasters from happening, it is crucial to ensure and assess the resiliency and integrity of current transmission pipelines in the State of Texas.
In this project, the main objective is to investigate the driving factors of pipeline incidents (failures, accidents) of currently existing pipelines.
The lack of preparedness of local governments and energy companies led to this serious state-wide power outage and energy crisis. Therefore, to prevent similar series of disasters from happening, it is crucial to ensure and assess the resiliency and integrity of current transmission pipelines in the State of Texas.
In this project, the main objective is to investigate the driving factors of pipeline incidents (failures, accidents) of currently existing pipelines.
Data & Source
USDA - NRCS Soil Data Viewer
The Soil Data Viewer is a built-in extension to ArcMap that allows the general public to retrieve and build soil-based thematic maps. Unfortunately, this extension is currently not supported by ArcGIS Pro, so the soil data acquisition process was done by using ArcMap 10.7.1.
All of the soil properties in Harris County were retrieved from the Soil Data Viewer.
All recorded Pipeline Incidents and Pipelines in Harris County
The map above shows all pipelines and incident records in Harris County.
The pipelines are mostly concentrated near the southeast corner around Galveston Bay. This is because Galveston is the most important bay area in Texas and works as the nexus of southern US's energy & oil industry, many large industrial & energy corporations and factories are located around this area. Thus, pipeline networks are built to transmit resources from offshore oil drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to local energy generation facilities or to interior regions in the US.
It also should be noted that many pipeline incident records are located in central Harris County, where there is no pipeline found. There are two major reasons that cause this:
1. Some of these incidents occurred around 20 to 30 years ago on pipelines that have been abandoned today.
2. Due to data confidentiality, privately-owned pipeline data were unable to be retrieved entirely. Furthermore, the acquired ones showed on the map above only represent their generalized directions and shapes due to the same reason.
Overview of all pipelines & incidents in the US
Click the image above to view in detail
Census Tracks in the County of Harris