Geohazards & Pipelines: Addressing Vulnerabilities, Standards, and Systemic Risks

Themed Session

Geohazards & Pipelines: Addressing Vulnerabilities, Standards, and Systemic Risks

Session Focus

This Special Session will explore the design and mitigation challenges facing energy and water pipelines subjected to geohazard actions. Bringing together engineering, geoscience, and operational perspectives, the session aims at highlighting advances in hazard mapping, evolving pipeline design codes, novel monitoring technologies and structural integrity issues. The discussion will emphasize lessons learned, systemic vulnerabilities, and pathways toward building resilience in pipeline systems.

 

Session Outline

Geohazard Mapping & Geotechnical Studies

  • Advances in landslide mapping, remote sensing, and subsurface characterization
  • Integration of geotechnical and geophysical data into pipeline routing and risk assessment

Pipeline-Soil interaction: Threats, Vulnerability and Mitigation Options

  • Advances in strain-based and performance-based design methodologies
  • Innovative engineering concepts for adaptability under geohazard stresses
  • Multi-physics modeling of soil–pipeline interaction
  • Addressing external corrosion and environment-assisted cracking through predictive analytics

Risk Management & Pipeline Service Resilience

  • Reliability-based and risk-based assessment models
  • Machine learning and fuzzy logic methods for integrity assessment
  • System-level modeling and digital twins to anticipate failure modes and optimize design choices
  • Integration of energy resilience planning to safeguard supply chains and minimize cascading disruptions

Pipeline Design Standards & Policy Perspectives

  • Addressing blind spots in design and construction practices
  • Updates and revisions of ASME standards and the need for geohazard-specific provisions
  • Weather-related degradation as a neglected dimension in design standards (corrosion, erosion, climate impacts)
  • Policies and governance frameworks to address poor pipeline performance and maintenance gaps

Early Warnings & Monitoring

  • Deployment of geotechnical sensors, UAVs, satellite InSAR, and AI-based systems
  • From detection to action: anticipatory measures and rapid response protocols

 

Session Format

The Special Session will be structured in two parts:

  1. Technical Presentations – cutting-edge research, methodologies, and innovations.
  2. Case Studies & Lessons Learned – insights into design, construction, and operational dimensions, with emphasis on fostering proactiveness and anticipatory action.

Call for Contributions

We invite the submission of either:

  • Full Papers (abstract required in advance), or
  • Extended Abstracts (2–3 page briefs highlighting methodological insights and key takeaways).

What is an extended abstract? Read here

 

Key Deadlines

For Paper Submissions

  • Abstract deadline: 30 November 2025
  • Full paper deadline: 1 March 2026

For Extended Abstract Submissions

  • Deadline: 31 March 2026