Proceedings of the 2018 12th International Pipeline Conference
IPC2018-78013
NEAR-REAL-TIME SEISMIC MONITORING FOR PIPELINES
Martin Zaleski
BGC Engineering Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Alex Baumgard
BGC Engineering Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada
ABSTRACT
Earthquake hazard management for oil and gas pipelines
should include both preparedness and response. The typical
approach for management of seismic hazards for pipelines is to
determine where large ground motions are frequently expected,
and apply mitigation to those pipeline segments. The approach
presented in this paper supplements the typical approach but
focuses on what to do, and where to do it, just after an earthquake
happens. In other words, we ask and answer: “Is the earthquake
we just had important?”, “What pipeline is and what sites might
it be important for?”, and “What should we do?”
In general, modern, high-pressure oil and gas pipelines resist
the direct effects of strong shaking, but are vulnerable to large
co-seismic differential permanent ground displacement (PGD)
produced by surface fault rupture, landslides, soil liquefaction,
or lateral spreading. The approach used in this paper employs
empirical relationships between earthquake magnitude, distance,
and the occurrence of PGD, derived from co-seismic PGD case-
history data, to prioritize affected pipeline segments for detailed
site-specific hazard assessments, pre-event resiliency upgrades,
and post-event response.
To help pipeline operators prepare for earthquakes, pipeline
networks are mapped with respect to earthquake probability and
co-seismic PGD susceptibility. Geological and terrain analyses
identify pipeline segments that cross PGD-susceptible ground.
Probabilistic seismic models and deterministic scenarios are
considered in estimating the frequency of sufficiently large and
close causative earthquakes. Pipeline segments are prioritized
where strong earthquakes are frequent and ground is susceptible
to co-seismic PGD. These may be short-listed for mitigation that
either reduces the pipeline’s vulnerability to damage or limits
failure consequences.
September 26-30, 2018, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
IPC2018-78013 FINAL
Gerald Ferris
BGC Engineering Inc.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
When an earthquake occurs, pipeline segments with credible
PGD potential are highlighted within minutes of an earthquake’s
occurrence. These assessments occur in near-real-time as part of
an online geohazard management database. The system collects
magnitude and location data from online earthquake data feeds
and intersects them against pipeline network and terrain hazard
map data. Pipeline operators can quickly mobilize inspection and
response resources to a focused area of concern.
Keywords: Geohazard, Pipeline, Failure, Statistics, Frequency,
Risk
INTRODUCTION
This paper proposes a two-component practice for
managing seismic hazards to operating pipelines. The first
component involves characterizing the earthquake hazard: the
expected spatial distribution, frequency, and intensity of
potentially damaging earthquake shaking; and the susceptibility
of ground that envelops buried pipelines to differential
permanent ground displacement (PGD). The second involves a
near-real-time earthquake monitoring system that keys in on
pipeline segments that might have experienced damage in the
aftermath of a nearby strong earthquake, to focus post-event
response efforts.
The way these two elements are utilized by pipeline
operators is expected to vary by the expected earthquake hazard
in the area where the pipelines are located. In areas with high
seismic hazard the focus would be on identifying the sites
susceptibility to PGD, then either establishing that the PGD was
tolerable or identifying physical repairs. In such a case the near-
real-time monitoring should be focused on sites that are pre-
identified to confirm performance. In medium hazard locations,
the individual sites are likely to have less specific study but more
of a screening level identification of the sites. The near-real-time
1 Copyright © 2018 by ASME
monitoring would again focus the operator after a seismic event
on the most likely sites to have been affected. In areas of low
seismicity it is likely that little or no seismic screening would
have been performed, so the near-real-time monitoring would be
used to identify a larger number of sites that could have been
affected for post event visual review.
Another use of the near-real time monitoring is related to
seismic damages that do not result in a pipeline failure that might
be detected by supervisory control and data acquisition
(SCADA) systems, such as a pin-hole crack or plastic
deformation without loss of containment. The monitoring
program can be used to identify the extent of the potential
damage area that should be the focus for post event follow-up,
such as smart pig runs or more focused visual monitoring.
EARTHQUAKE SHAKING HAZARD
An earthquake is an episode of ground shaking caused by a
sudden stress change in the earth. An earthquake occurs when a
fault’s strength is exceeded by tectonic stresses that build up over
time or reduced by pore-fluid pressure changes (e.g., induced
seismicity triggered by high-pressure fluid injection). The energy
released as seismic waves is proportional to the elastic strain
recovered as a fault slips. An earthquake’s magnitude is a
measure of the total energy released. Seismic waves radiate
outward from the earthquake’s focus or hypocentre, the point
within the earth where an earthquake starts. An earthquake
epicentre is the point on the earth's surface vertically above the
focus or hypocentre.
Ground motion is the transient shaking felt at the earth’s
surface as seismic waves pass by. Instruments can measure the
ground motion as acceleration, velocity, or displacement time-
histories. Generally, ground motion severity increases with
earthquake magnitude, decreases with distance from the source,
and depends on the style of faulting, the position of the site with
respect to the relative motion between blocks, the stiffness of
rock between the source and site, and site soil and topographic
conditions. Measures of ground motion severity that have
relevance to pipeline operations include peak ground
acceleration (PGA), which contributes to ground failure; peak
ground velocity (PGV), which is used in evaluating axial strain
due to wave propagation along buried pipelines [1], and peak
spectral acceleration at period T seconds (S(T)), which governs
the structural response of above-ground facilities.
The geology and geometry of surface deposits affect wave
amplitudes as they propagate upward from the underlying rock.
The conditions of these surface deposits vary widely and are
often unknown unless a site-specific investigation has been done.
A soil’s amplification potential is commonly related to its shear-
wave velocity, averaged over the uppermost 30 m of a site
(VS30). An amplification factor relates reference-condition and
ground-surface peak ground-motion amplitudes. The degree to
which ground motions are amplified depends on the site class
and the amplitude of the ground motions passing through the
underlying rock [2].
A probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) is a way
to estimate seismic hazard that considers all credible earthquake
scenarios, weighted by occurrence probability. Each scenario is
described by the earthquake’s location, magnitude, and style of
faulting, and related to the ground motion, for example, PGA, at
a site by a ground motion prediction model. Canadian seismicity
is described by a PSHA completed by Natural Resources Canada
(NRCan) for the 2015 National Building Code of Canada [3],
which is limited to seismic hazard arising from natural
earthquakes caused by fault rupture due to tectonic stresses.
Current U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) models describe natural
seismic hazard for the entire nation [4], and induced seismicity
(i.e., triggered by man-made activities) for oil and gas producing
regions in the central and eastern U.S. [5].
In North America, natural seismicity is concentrated within
the western Cordillera, near the boundary between the North
American, Pacific, and Juan de Fuca plates. Moderate natural
seismic activity occurs around the New Madrid seismic zone of
southern Illinois, western Missouri, and eastern Tennessee and
Kentucky; and the Saint Lawrence seaway of southern Ontario
and Quebec. In recent years, small to moderate earthquakes
arising from oil and gas production activity have become more
frequent in parts of Oklahoma, Ohio, central Alberta, and
northeastern British Columbia. Otherwise, most of the oil and
gas producing regions of North America are located within
relatively stable and aseismic sedimentary basins.
Induced earthquakes are a recent phenomenon; the state of
knowledge about them is evolving. They occur where fluid
pressures are changed around existing, critically stressed,
optimally oriented bedrock faults. Most information about
bedrock faulting in oil-producing areas is proprietary;
accordingly, it must be assumed that an earthquake could be
induced wherever wastewater injection, hydraulic fracturing, gas
withdrawal, or enhanced oil recovery activities take place.
GROUND FAILURE HAZARD
Ground failure is permanent ground-surface displacement
(PGD) caused by strong earthquake shaking. A pipeline buried
in moving ground might experience large loads if the PGD is
large, the transition between deformed and un-deformed ground
is abrupt, the moving ground encompasses a long pipeline
section, and the ground grips the pipeline tightly. The load also
depends on the direction the ground moves with respect to the
pipeline and the stiffness of trench backfill and trench walls.
Most ruptures of modern, arc-welded, high-pressure oil and
gas transmission pipelines experienced in past earthquakes were
caused by ground failure, not ground motion [6]. Case-history
data from 29 major historical earthquakes describe 25 instances
of damage to buried continuous ductile pipelines: of these, 18 are
attributed to ground failure, and seven to strong ground shaking
[7]. Most buried transmission pipelines (as described above) can
resist damage from lateral PGD up to 0.3 m [8]; the reader is
cautioned that this depends on the pipeline design. Earthquake-
triggered ground failure mechanisms that pose an integrity
hazard to continuous, welded steel oil or natural gas transmission
pipelines include surface faulting, lateral spreads and flows of
seismically liquefied soil, and landslides. Modern transmission
pipelines have historically not been subject to rupture by
2 Copyright © 2018 by ASME
transient ground displacement [9] or liquefaction-induced
settlement or buoyancy effects [8].
Liquefaction
Loose deposits of sand, silt, or gravel can compact when
shaken by an earthquake. If the deposit is saturated and unable
to drain as fast as its tendency to compact, the attempted decrease
in volume causes an increase in pore water pressure. If the pore
water pressure increases to reach the overburden pressure, soil
grains no longer exert pressure on one another; the deposit loses
all strength and behaves as a liquid [10]. This process is called
soil liquefaction.
Table 1. Liquefaction susceptibility of sedimentary deposits during strong seismic shaking [13].
Liquefied soils can move several metres or more [11] as
lateral spreads on slopes inclined at 6% or less or near free faces
like river banks, and as soil flows on steeper slopes. Lateral
spreading is the finite, lateral displacement of large, surficial
blocks of soil on gently sloping ground or near free-faces
following liquefaction in a shallow underlying deposit. Flow
slides are down-slope movements of completely broken soil over
relatively large distances on moderate to steep ground [12].
Well-built, welded steel hydrocarbon transmission pipelines
generally resist damage from small displacements (<0.3 m [8])
that occur as seismic settlement, enhanced oscillation, or

General distribution of Likelihood that cohesionless sediments when saturated would be

Type of deposit cohesionless sediments in susceptible to liquefaction
deposits < 500 yr Holocene Pleistocene Pre-Pleistocene
Continental deposits
River channel Locally variable Very high High Low Very low
Flood plain Locally variable High Moderate Low Very low
Alluvial fan and plain Widespread Moderate Low Low Very low
Marine terraces and plains Widespread --- Low Very low Very low
Delta and fan-delta Widespread High Moderate Low Very low
Lacustrine and playa Variable High Moderate Low Very low
Colluvium Variable High Moderate Low Very low
Talus Widespread Low Low Very low Very low
Dunes Widespread High Moderate Low Very low
Loess Variable High High High Unknown
Glacial Till Variable Low Low Very low Very low
Tuff Rare Low Low Very low Very low
Tephra Widespread High High ? ?
Residual soils Rare Low Low Very low Very low
Sabkha Locally variable High Moderate Low Very low
Coastal Zone
Delta Widespread Very high High Low Very low
Estuarine Locally variable High Moderate Low Very low
Beach - High wave energy Widespread Moderate Low Very low Very low
Beach - Low wave energy Widespread High Moderate Low Very low
Lagoonal Locally variable High Moderate Low Very low
Foreshore Locally variable High Moderate Low Very low
Artificial Fills
Uncompacted fill Variable Very high --- --- ---
Compacted fill Variable Low --- --- ---

3 Copyright © 2018 by ASME

buoyant rise, but are vulnerable to large and concentrated
displacements that occur as lateral spreads and flows [8].
A soil’s susceptibility to liquefaction refers to its likelihood
of being loose, cohesionless, and saturated, and thereby the
relative ease of liquefying if subjected to sufficiently strong
ground motions. Liquefaction susceptibility is qualitatively
related to the age and genesis of sedimentary and anthropogenic
deposits, assuming saturated soil conditions and the occurrence
of sufficiently strong earthquake shaking [13].
Soils with high to very high liquefaction susceptibility
warrant consideration for lateral spreading that might impact a
pipeline [8]. Natural geological deposits that correspond with
these susceptibility levels include Pleistocene to Holocene loess,
Holocene river channel deposits, and recent (i.e., deposited
within the past 500 years) flood plain, delta and fan-delta,
lacustrine and playa, colluvial, and dune deposits. Non-
engineered anthropogenic fills may also fall into these categories
[13]. The occurrence of these deposits can be inferred from
surficial geological or terrain maps [14]; however, care must be
taken to consider the complete subsurface succession, and not
just the deposits at surface.
Lateral spreads and flows can occur where soils susceptible
to liquefaction undergo strong, sustained shaking. Two seismic
loading conditions must be met to produce lateral spreads or
flows that might damage a buried pipeline. First, site PGA (i.e.,
reference-condition PGA modified for the appropriate Site
Class) should be 0.09 g or larger: this value corresponds with a
1% cumulative probability of liquefaction occurrence [15] and is
thus considered by the authors to be a conservative threshold.
Second, the causative earthquake’s magnitude and epicentral
distance should plot above a magnitude-distance threshold for
liquefaction triggering, constructed from case-history data [16]
(Figure 1). There are no instances of liquefaction in the case-
history data set arising from earthquakes with magnitudes lower
than 4.8.
The PGA and the magnitude-distance criteria were both
developed from case histories: 230 for PGA [15] and 137 for
magnitude-distance [16]. Accordingly, they are considered
conservative but not definitive boundaries.
Liquefaction probability, conditional upon the occurrence of
ground motions of a given exceedance probability, may be
determined from relating a magnitude-distance deaggregation of
the seismic hazard to the liquefaction triggering threshold curve.
For example, the conditional probability of liquefaction given a
1:2475 ground motion (i.e., ground shaking with a 2%
exceedance probability in 50 years) can be obtained by summing
the proportional contribution of magnitude-distance pairs that
plot below the curve shown in Figure 1. Deaggregations are
obtained from probabilistic seismic hazard assessments, either
done using purpose-specific software for a specific site, or
obtained from government agencies (e.g., USGS or NRCan).
Alternatively, the annual probability of exceeding a
displacement threshold of relevance to pipeline integrity can be
crudely estimated using a Liquefaction Severity Index [17], or
more precisely calculated by a summation of the product of a
PGA likelihood, conditional probability of liquefaction given
that PGA’s occurrence, and conditional probability of ground
displacement larger than 0.3 m given the occurrence of
liquefaction, across the range of expected PGA at a site [18].
1000
Epicentral Distance (km)
100
10
1
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Moment Magnitude
Figure 1. Liquefaction triggering threshold curve [16].
Earthquake-Triggered Landslides
A landslide is the movement of soil and rock down sloping
terrain. An earthquake can trigger a landslide if earthquake-
induced ground acceleration creates temporary stresses that
exceed the strength of the soils in the slope.
Earthquakes can trigger movement of pre-existing
landslides or on slopes greater than about 8° [19] underlain by
weak bedrock or clay-rich soils. The 8° criterion was developed
based on 76 earthquake case histories, collectively representing
thousands of earthquake-triggered landslides, and thus should be
considered a conservative limit, but not a “hard” limit. Pipeline
segments potentially subject to earthquake-triggered landslide
hazards can be interpreted from desktop information sources
including terrain models, Google Earth, and observations from
geohazard or geotechnical investigations along operating
pipelines.
A landslide can happen if a local earthquake occurs with a
magnitude and epicentral distance that plots above a landslide-
triggering threshold (Figure 2 [20,21]). Any slope steeper than
about 8° located within that distance could conceivably
experience an earthquake-triggered landslide. Relationships
between deposit types and shear strength [22] can be used to
develop less inherently conservative screening or response
thresholds, but these typically require extensive field geological
and geotechnical investigations and may not be practical for
operating pipeline systems that cross extensive terrain.
Coherent slides are more likely to encompass sufficiently
long portions of pipelines and thereby potentially cause rupture,
but disrupted slides and falls (e.g., shallow translational earth
and debris slides) are most commonly observed following
earthquakes.
4 Copyright © 2018 by ASME
 1000
Epicentral Distance (km)
100
10
1 examining the pipeline route for soils with susceptibility to
0.1
4 5 6 7 8 9
Moment Magnitude
Disrupted Slides and Falls (Keefer 1984)
Coherent Slides (Keefer 1984)
Figure 2. Landslide triggering threshold curves [20,21].
Surface Faulting
Surface faulting is displacement that reaches the Earth's
surface during slip along a fault. The vulnerability of a pipeline
to surface faulting is a function of the displacement magnitude,
orientation (longitudinal, transverse, or oblique) with respect to
the pipeline, the fault’s sense of slip (strike slip, reverse, normal,
or oblique), stiffness of rock or soils into which the pipeline is
trenched and backfilled, and pipeline resilience (a function of its
diameter, steel grade, wall thickness, operating pressures, and
construction quality).
There are no pipeline-specific industry guidelines or
regulations that define a level of fault activity or hazard. Most
North American regulations or guidelines that deal with surface
faulting are for habitable structures or dams. For these, a fault is
hazardous if the age of its most recent movement meets a
criterion specific to the type of facility being contemplated. For
example, the State of California considers a Holocene-active
fault (one that has moved within the past 11,600 years) hazardous
to habitable structures; for dams, the standard is 35,000 years
[23].
The hazard of surface faulting is assessed by seismological
and paleoseismic investigations of geologic faults and
topographic lineaments suspected to have been recently active,
and therefore have elevated potential for renewed activity within
the operating life span of a pipeline that crosses them. Historical
seismological data – specifically the spatial distribution of
earthquake hypocentres and the moment-tensor or focal-
mechanism solutions constructed from seismograph recordings
– might reveal the presence of faults with surface rupture
potential. Potentially active fault lineaments are generally more
identifiable where fault-related landforms have developed
through repeated ruptures. The corollary is that areas with low
strain rates (i.e., stable continental regions away from tectonic
plate boundaries) and/or those where the landscape is obscured
by thick vegetation, urban development, or thick Pleistocene
glacial sediments, might host potentially active yet practically
unidentifiable faults [24]. The careful integration of geological,
geophysical, seismological, and paleoseismological data is
important in identifying legitimate fault hazards to pipeline
integrity.
SCREENING FOR SEISMIC HAZARDS
Screening for soils that could be subject to PGD involves
liquefaction movement or for slopes where earthquake-triggered
landslides can happen
As described previously, a soil’s susceptibility to
10 liquefaction is related to its likelihood of being loose,
cohesionless, and saturated. A screening method that can be used
to relate qualitative liquefaction susceptibility to the age and
genesis of sedimentary and anthropogenic deposits [13], is
provided in Table 1.
Susceptibility to earthquake-triggered landslide activity is
less amenable to screening level processes as the potential
triggering is related to the current factor of safety of the slope,
and the type of landslide mechanism (shallow, deep seated).
However, a way to screen can be based on slope lengths,
removing slopes that do not have enough length to fail the
pipeline even if it were to become mobilized following an
earthquake using vulnerability [25] or soil pipeline interaction
studies.
FRAMEWORK OF A MONITORING SYSTEM
In the absence of reliable prediction of earthquakes, pipeline
operators are at present best served by a system that alerts them
to earthquakes large enough and close enough to their systems to
cause damage, and focuses response efforts to locations where
large differential PGD is expected.
The authors have developed and currently maintain a real-
time seismic monitoring module on various pipeline operators’
online geohazard management databases. The seismic
monitoring module provides rapid notification of earthquakes
near operating pipeline networks. The earthquake monitoring
system queries data feeds that describe all earthquakes included
in USGS and Natural Resources Canada RSS feeds that occur
within 250 km of an operating pipeline network, irrespective of
magnitude. These notifications contain estimated magnitudes,
epicentral locations and depths, and are sent by those agencies
typically with 10 minutes of an earthquake’s occurrence.
When an earthquake occurs, an operator’s first response step
is to quickly identify which pipeline segments might have
experienced large differential PGD. The area of immediate
interest is the region defined by the liquefaction (Figure 1) and
landslide (Figure 2) threshold curves: in other words, the area
surrounding the earthquake’s epicenter and within the threshold
distance that corresponds to its magnitude. The operator should
consider positional and magnitude uncertainty inherent in early
earthquake reports. The next screening step is to rapidly identify
terrain susceptible to liquefaction or landsliding within the
threshold area: this might consist of a list of watercourse
crossings (as a proxy for liquefaction susceptibility, as per Table
5 Copyright © 2018 by ASME
1) and slopes, unless a screening with terrain assessment has
been completed.
Where pipelines cross potentially active geologic faults
upon which movement might have occurred during an
earthquake, relationships between magnitude and surface-
faulting likelihood [26] and displacement [27] can be employed
to estimate the likelihood of large PGD. Where these exceed the
operator’s tolerance (e.g, the 0.3 m [8] threshold described
earlier, modified for pipeline vulnerability and consequence), the
operator may elect to take steps to verify integrity either in
deciding whether to shut in one or more pipelines or in resuming
normal operations.
Lanzano et al. [7] compiled case histories of pipeline breaks
(DS2), leaks (DS1), and those damaged and needing repair but
without a loss of containment (DS0). The case histories include
33 failures of modern, arc-welded, ductile steel oil and gas
transmission pipelines. Figure 4 compares these 33 cases to the
liquefaction [16] and coherent slides [20,21] thresholds. The
thresholds capture all the modern transmission pipeline damage
cases and are likely conservative. Of the 33 failures plotted in
Figure 4, seven were due to strong ground shaking, four were
failures at an active fault, 19 were associated with liquefaction
and three were due to landslide activity. Modern welded steel
pipelines mostly survive earthquakes, even those that exceed the
1000
DS2 - Pipeline Breaks
DS1 - Pipeline Leaks
DS0 - Damaged Without Loss of Containment
Liquefaction Threshold
Coherent Slides Threshold
100
Epicentral Distance (km)
10
1
4 5
Figure 1. Pipeline failures compared to landslide triggering threshold curves. Pipeline failures from Lanzano et al. [7].
thresholds shown, such as exhibited in the recent Christchurch
Earthquake [28].
SEISMIC ACTIVITY ACTION PLAN
The monitoring system is intended to alert an operator to a
potentially damaging event shortly after it occurs. Because it
does not provide advance warning of an earthquake, it will not
prevent the occurrence of earthquake-triggered pipeline damage.
described above. However, by providing a short-list of sites
where earthquake-triggered permanent ground displacement
might have occurred, the objective is to focus post-event
inspection and response resources, to limit the consequences of
pipeline damage or failure.
Pipeline segments within terrain susceptible to those
ground-failure hazards can identified to the pipeline operator in
automated email alerts. This requires that the operator identify
PGD-susceptible terrain in advance. This would typically be
based on detailed studies for some sites and/or a screening study
for most in lower seismic areas. For areas of low seismicity, the
screening might be based only on vulnerability considerations
(e.g., slope length).
Response actions will depend on the pipeline’s diameter,
wall thickness, age, and operating conditions (collectively
vulnerability to damage given that ground movement occurs);
and amount and type of product transported and location of
6 7 8 9
Moment Magnitude
6 Copyright © 2018 by ASME
hazard-prone segments with respect to populations and
environmentally sensitive areas (collectively the consequence of
failure). Actions could include ground-surface observations by
geological or geotechnical subject-matter experts; in-line
inspections; checks of real-time integrity-monitoring systems
(e.g., SCADA); pre-emptive shut-ins or purging; or other means
Table 2. Example seismic monitoring action plans.
Threshold Natural Gas Operator
Exceeded
Level 1 • Notify pipeline integrity group
Level 2 • Notify pipeline integrity group and
control room
• Post-seismic inspection by geohazard
specialist
Level 3 • Notify pipeline integrity group and
control room
• Post-seismic inspection by geohazard
specialist; follow-up ILI inspections
Figure 2. Example action thresholds in magnitude-distance space.
to verify pipeline integrity as part of decision making to interrupt
or resume operations. Example approaches for operation actions
are summarized in Table 2.
Three example action levels are plotted in magnitude-
distance space (Figure 5). The magnitude-distance thresholds
follow case-history data for liquefaction [16] and earthquake-
Liquids Operator
• Notify pipeline integrity group
• Notify pipeline integrity group and control room
• Shut in pipeline
• Post-seismic inspection by geohazard specialist
• Notify pipeline integrity group and control room
• Shut-in the pipeline until post-seismic inspections
completed by geohazard specialist; follow-up ILI
inspections
7 Copyright © 2018 by ASME
triggered landslides [20,21], modified to account for expected
uncertainty in initial estimates of magnitude and position. The
example actions are for illustration purposes: pipeline operating
companies need to consider many factors outside the scope of
this paper when developing seismic response plans.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
Planned improvements to the state-of-practice approach to
assessing and monitoring earthquake threats to pipelines include
integrating existing near-real-time earthquake-shaking data,
For worldwide earthquakes with magnitudes larger than
about 5.5, the USGS releases a ShakeMap – a data product that
integrates ground-motion predictions and real-time seismograph
measurements into a relatively robust map of expected ground
motions, including PGA, PGV, and Sa(T) for a range of spectral
periods. Ongoing research revolves around improved damage
prediction tools [29] that leverage ShakeMap: 1) developing
relationships between PGV, pipeline geometry, and fragility; 2)
integrating probabilistic liquefaction [30] and landslide [31]
models; and 3) obtaining fragility data for above-ground pipeline
infrastructure for use in ShakeCast [32].
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors like to thank the pipeline operators who have
provided us with the opportunity to acquire, organize, and
analyze their pipeline exposure and failure incident data and as a
result, have supported the goal of improving the management of
geohazards in the pipeline industry.
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