Pipeline transportation of crude oil in Canada: Environmental risk assessment using modified diffusion models

Abstract

Pipeline transportation of heavy oil poses significant risk to the environment and the human population. Though remarkable progress has been made in developing both qualitative and quantitative techniques for assessing pipeline risk, the potential threat to the bodies of water has not been well studied in the literature. In this study, we focus on three bodies of water, that is, river, lake, and aquifers, and propose water diffusion model for each, which are then used to evaluate the risk of the Energy East pipeline project in Canada. Each diffusion model facilitates estimating impact radius that enables determining the environmental risk, which in turn could be used as a surrogate of affected population.