Right-of-way Research Articles

Remote Sensing of Forest Structural Changes Due to the Recent Boom of Unconventional Shale Gas Extraction Activities in Appalachian Ohio

Dense unconventional shale gas extraction activities have occurred in Appalachian Ohio since 2010 and they have caused various landcover changes and forest fragmentation issues. This research investigated the most recent boom of unconventional shale gas extraction activities and their impacts on the landcover changes and forest structural changes in the Muskingum River Watershed in Appalachian Ohio. Triple-temporal high-resolution natural-color aerial images from 2006 to 2017 and a group of ancillary geographic information system (GIS) data were first used to digitize the landcover changes due to the recent boom of these unconventional shale gas extraction activities. Geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) was then employed to form forest patches as image objects and to accurately quantify the forest connectivity. Lastly, the initial and updated forest image objects were used to quantify the loss of core forest as the two-dimensional (2D) forest structural changes, and initial and updated canopy height models (CHMs) derived from airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point clouds were used to quantify the loss of forest volume as three-dimensional (3D) forest structural changes. The results indicate a consistent format but uneven spatiotemporal development of these unconventional shale gas extraction activities. Dense unconventional shale gas extraction activities formed two apparent hotspots. Two-thirds of the well pad facilities and half of the pipeline right-of-way (ROW) corridors were constructed during the raising phase of the boom. At the end of the boom, significant forest fragmentation already occurred in both hotspots of these active unconventional shale gas extraction activities, and the areal loss of core forest reached up to 14.60% in the densest concentrated regions of these activities. These results call for attention to the ecological studies targeted on the forest fragmentation in the Muskingum River Watershed and the broader Appalachian Ohio regions.

Under the wire

This paper discusses the occupation of an electricity transmission line right-of-way (ROW) at a busy interchange to the western edge of Accra, Ghana. In planning documents, ROWs are depicted as open spaces and obtaining permits to develop the land is prohibited. However, across the city, people continue to live and work under the wire, describing their occupancy as one of ongoing temporariness. Drawing from fourteen months of ethnographic research in Accra, I unpack the production of this urban temporality and argue that this ongoing temporariness is not linear, but should rather be understood as a condition punctured by events which both threaten and re-establish temporary occupation. I contend that it is only by attending closely to a splintered temporality, that we may grapple with the ways in which ongoing temporariness takes hold in cities marked by uneven access to land, income and capital.

Understanding Green Street Design: Evidence from Three Cases in the U.S.

World cities need more green areas to promote social, economic, and environmental well-being; the problem, however, is that the space available for green infrastructure (GI) within the built environment is limited. Finding empty, free, or underutilized spaces within the built environment to be repurposed for GI has been a challenge. Streets are public, numerous, and evenly distributed, being a desirable place to fulfill this requirement. However, they are also heavily regulated public spaces, where design is standardized, and ruled by codes and manuals. Some cities in the US have implemented an increasing number of green streets (green infrastructures within the rights-of-way with environmental purposes), because of green stormwater management federal policies. This paper aims to understand the green street design procedure, based on empirical evidence. Three cities were studied (Portland, Seattle, and Philadelphia) by means of documentary information, visual inspections, and interviews. It is of special interest to unveil how traditional street design has been modified to adopt these new green elements within rights-of-way (ROW). Results show a longer and more complex street design process for green streets, where many more disciplines intervene. These results are discussed in the light of recent movements and trends in street design.

Powerline right-of-way management and flower-visiting insects: How vegetation management can promote pollinator diversity.

Loss in the availability of early successional habitat is a threat to pollinator populations. Given that powerline rights-of-way (ROW) must be managed to maintain early successional habitat, preventing vegetation from interfering with electrical lines, they have the potential to provide conservation benefits for wild pollinators. Moreover, it is possible to provide conservation benefits with no additional cost to land managers. We surveyed flower-visiting insects over two years in different vegetation management treatments in a long-term research ROW to determine which best promoted pollinator abundance and species richness. We found that the ROW had stabilized in an early successional state soon after its establishment and that this early successional state could be maintained with low levels of periodic maintenance. We collected a high diversity of flower-visiting insects (126 bee species and 179 non-bee morphospecies) in six ROW plots. Higher levels of herbicide application had a negative effect on bee species richness, but low levels of herbicide application were compatible with a high abundance and species richness of flower-visiting insects, including several rare species. Moreover, this effect was seen only in the bee community, and not in non-bee flower-visiting insects. Our results suggest further research into the conservation value of ROW for pollinators is warranted. We demonstrate that there is substantial potential for pollinator conservation in ROW, compatible with low-cost vegetation management.

Lacs publics mais rives (en partie) privées : analyse d’un paradoxe géo-légal

Large perialpine lakes belong to the public domain, with slight legal differences in each alpine country. Historical reasons explain this public status, as their use for navigation. In theory, this status ensures free access to the lake, for tourism and recreation among other functions. Building from French, Italian and various Swiss cantons case studies, this paper intertwines the legal status of public lakes and geographical analyses about their uses and empirical access to their shoreline. I argue that the legal regime of public domain constructed the “ lake” object according to a very restrictive spatial delimitation, limited to the water body itself and occasionally expanded to the shores when rights of way are provided. This spatial extent still shrank between the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, owing to the shoreline urbanisation-privatisation process which suppressed some of these rights of way. Nowadays, social demand for accessing the lakes is strong but hardly satisfied because of the coastal privatisation. This context challenges the legal construction of the “ lake” as a spatially restrictive object. The public domain regime is theoretically very protective but this spatially restricted delimitation prevents it from being really efficient in terms of public access to the lakes. The paper thus proposes to explain this geo-legal paradox.

Application of LIDAR Technology in Oil and Gas Pipeline Route Selection and Optimization

The far reaching advantage of Airborne LiDAR technology in the acquisition of highly dense 3D spatial data for hydraulic modelling and geomorphic studies as well as route analysis, selection and/or optimization etc. cannot be overemphasised. Our aim in this work is to show the significant of extracting coordinates of linear feature from Airborne LiDAR cloud data obtained at low altitude and how these can be used to procure gas pipeline corridor mapping for effective design and implementation. Although the data so obtained can be used invariably to derive various environmental components and derivatives like: DTM, DSM, DEM, TIN, LULC map, contour map, profile map, etc. in accordance with what is demanded or the requirement of the end users. The terrain of study spanning about 27km is (swampy and waterlogged) rendering ground survey methods ineffective. Hence, aerial survey expedition with the aid of Piper Navajo PA-34 airplane coupled with other accompanied equipment were flown. From the point cloud obtained, 1,340 coordinate points were used to generate gas pipeline route alignment, profile and right of way (ROW). Subsequently TIN for the project area was consequently derived. Five route options with total coordinates nodes listing of up to 44 in grand total were extracted and used in best route analysis. Option_5 was selected as the best route after satisfying the conditions imposed for selection.

Outdoor Investigation of the Corona Characteristics and Audible Noise of a Hybrid AC/DC Overhead Line

Electric utilities are looking for novel methods to increase the transmission capacity of existing transmission lines. The conversion of conventional AC towers to hybrid AC/DC lines allows for significantly more power and reduces the need for new rights of way. Still, due to the fixed geometry, there will be coupling effects between the AC and DC systems. Corona effects, such as audible noise, which are crucial for public acceptance, must be controlled to obtain crucial public acceptance. An outdoor test setup is used to investigate the corona audible noise and partial discharges of parallel AC and DC bundles. The effect of a DC bias on the AC corona as well as an AC ripple on DC corona are studied for varying surface gradients and weather conditions. The AC and DC audible noise clearly increased for most cases of a DC bias or AC ripple, respectively. The relative increase was found higher if the conductor was only slightly above corona as it happens in dry conditions with light pollution. Still, the highest level of AC audible noise was observed during wet weather and for DC during dry conditions.

Modeling and control of automated vehicle access on dedicated bus rapid transit lanes

The establishment of dedicated automated vehicle (AV) lanes has been regarded as an effective approach for addressing heterogeneous traffic with both AVs and regular vehicles (RVs), promoting both traffic efficiency and safety. However, building new dedicated AV lanes in urban areas is not cost effective in the early stage of AV adoption. Fortunately, dedicated bus rapid transit (BRT) lanes can provide a separate right-of-way (ROW) for AVs, which is a practical and economical alternative for promoting AV development. In this paper, we propose an innovative idea of allowing AVs to use dedicated BRT lanes, and quantitatively analyze the stationary performance of mixed-use lanes. Specifically, the analysis is conducted through a cyclic space–time model for AVs on the mixed-use lane, and a sequential optimization method (SOM) is proposed to approximately solve the model. With the SOM providing a valid tool for performance evaluation, we then develop an assignment model for the routing of AVs on a traffic corridor with both mixed-use lane and general-purpose lanes to minimize the total travel time of both AVs and RVs. The model is formulated as a black-box nonlinear program without an explicit analytical form; a successive linear programming (SLP) algorithm with finite difference for gradient approximation is then utilized to solve the nonlinear program. Numerical experiments are conducted in different scenarios, which reveal that the establishment of the mixed-use lane can not only improve the efficiency of AVs but also alleviate the congestion on general-purpose lanes.

Automating Utility Permitting within Highway Right-of-Way via a Generic UML/OCL Model and Natural Language Processing

AbstractEach year, thousands of new utilities are installed within the highway right-of-way (ROW) nationwide. This proliferation of utilities yields a great challenge to the traditional practice at...

A Review of Vegetation Encroachment Detection in Power Transmission Lines using Optical Sensing Satellite Imagery

Vegetation encroachment in power transmission lines can cause outages, which may result in severe impact on economic of power utilities companies as well as the consumer. Vegetation detection and monitoring along the power line corridor right-of-way (ROW) are implemented to protect power transmission lines from vegetation penetration. There were various methods used to monitor the vegetation penetration, however, most of them were too expensive and time consuming. Satellite images can play a major role in vegetation monitoring, because it can cover high spatial area with relatively low cost. In this paper, the current techniques used to detect the vegetation encroachment using satellite images are reviewed and categorized into four sectors; Vegetation Index based method, object-based detection method, stereo matching based and other current techniques. However, the current methods depend usually on setting manually serval threshold values and parameters which make the detection process very static. Machine Learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) algorithms can provide a very high accuracy with flexibility in the detection process. Hence, in addition to review the current technique of vegetation penetration monitoring in power transmission, the potential of using Machine Learning based algorithms are also included.

Effect of subsoil tillage during pipeline construction activities on near‐term soil physical properties and crop yields in the right‐of‐way

AbstractPersistence of subsoil compaction in construction right‐of‐way (ROW) areas is a major cropland concern following installation of underground pipelines. Soil physical disturbance and remediation practices including removal of topsoil, subsoil tillage and replacement of topsoil were investigated in a soybean–corn rotation field, which was located within a pipeline ROW. The objectives of the study were to investigate the effectiveness of subsoil tillage (300 and 450 mm) applied shortly after the pipeline installation used to help restore soil physical properties and to recover crop yields. Soil bulk density, soil cone index and crop yields (soybean and corn) from three ROW trafficked zones (Z1, Z2 and Z3) and adjacent unaffected zones were compared at one year and two years after pipeline installation. Compared to 300 mm of subsoil tillage in the ROW zones, 450 mm of subsoil tillage did not significantly improve the soil bulk density and crop (soybean and corn) yields. Compared to 300 mm of subsoil tillage, 450 mm of subsoil tillage created significantly lower soil cone index values within the treated soil layer. Compared to yield data from the adjacent unaffected zones, the ROW zones (Z1, Z2 and Z3) had statistically significant (p < .05) crop yield declines of 25% in soybean (2017) and 15% in corn (2018). The near‐term soil physical properties and crop yield have been improved from the subsoil tillage applied in the affected zones; however, their recovery to normal conditions as in the unaffected areas has not been achieved within the 2‐year period.

Pipeline Impacts and Recovery of Dry Mixed-Grass Prairie Soil and Plant Communities

Agricultural practices have historically dominated disturbance on North American grasslands. Disturbances from oil and gas have become increasingly common and problematic for grassland conservation. With growing demand for oil and gas, industry is actively implementing minimal disturbance techniques during construction to reduce impacts on grasslands. This study aimed to determine impacts of a large-diameter pipeline right of way (ROW) on dry mixed-grass prairie to determine if and how far these impacts extended beyond the ROW and the effect of time on grassland recovery on and off ROW. Soil and vegetation on the ROW and on transects extending 300 m on either side of the ROW were assessed over a 10-yr period, starting the yr of construction, at six sites along a pipeline route in southern Alberta, Canada. There were significant impacts to soil and vegetation on the ROW and within 5 m of the ROW in the first yr. The trench was most impacted, followed by work and storage areas. Within 2 yr, soil and plant communities were on a trajectory toward reference prairie conditions. Ten yr following construction, only soil pH and bare ground were greater, and litter was less, on the trench than on work and storage areas, and relative to reference prairie. While native grass richness, dominance, and cover were similar on and off ROW, abundance of some native forb species was less on ROW. Non-native species cover was < 2% in all yr and locations. Although ruderal weed species were abundant on ROW the yr following construction, they disappeared by the following yr. Use of minimal-disturbance construction techniques reduced the size and intensity of the disturbance footprint, allowing for even sensitive arid habitat to recover within a short period of time. Similar approaches to other grassland disturbances can increase ecosystem resiliency.

An Assessment of the Potential to Produce Commercially Valuable Lipids on Highway Right-of-Way Land Areas Located Within the Southeastern United States

Right-of-way (ROW) land areas are required for all publicly owned transportation roadways representing over 40 million acres within the US alone. These relatively unused land assets could support potential farming land for plants and algae that contain high levels of lipids that could be used in the energy industry as an alternative fuel source. This process would offer many benefits including more efficient use of public land, eliminating mowing maintenance, increasing the bioenergy use in the US, providing visually appealing viewscapes, and helping to naturally reduce localized carbon dioxide. This paper analyzed the feasibility and potential optimization strategies of using this concept in the South-Eastern United States by scaling and comparing many of the benefits and risks associated with the selected lipid sources (soybeans, flax, sunflowers, Tung trees, Chinese tallow tree, and microalgae). Based on this assessment, the most attractive option appears to be growing flax in the winter and sunflowers in the summer with Tung Trees grown year-round as an alternative option. This would maximize lipids output while preserving and enhancing right-of-way land areas.

Procedural Environmental Injustice in ‘Europe’s Greenest City’: A Case Study into the Felling of Sheffield’s Street Trees

With around two million trees within its boundaries, the city of Sheffield, England, is known as the ‘greenest city in Europe’. Of these, 36,000 are ‘street trees’, defined as those planted on pavements and other public rights of way. As of 2012, however, a private contractor was awarded a £2.2 billion contract by Sheffield City Council to upgrade the city’s roads over a 25-year period. This required the felling of over 6000 street trees by the end of August 2017. By 2015, this had sparked such widespread public opposition that the felling programme missed its 2017 deadline. For protesters, the central point of contention was and continues to be the seemingly indiscriminate felling of healthy trees. This article examines the specific forms of harm precipitating local public involvement in such opposition. In doing so, it explains the substantive injustices associated with the felling of street trees before focusing on the underpinning forms of procedural environmental injustice that have allowed for their ongoing production. This contributes to wider green criminological literature by demonstrating how public participation in decision-making is crucial for the attainment of environmental justice.

Developing a Liquefaction-Related Protocol for the FEED Design Phase of a Pipeline RoW Corridor

Soil liquefaction in the free field usually results in the generation of sand craters and volcanoes, as well as in surface ground cracks due to subsidence and lateral displacements. Technical constructions built on or within liquefiable soils may exhibit liquefaction-induced structural damages due to differential settlements, displacements and/or tilting that may lead to their loss of integrity or operational functionality. Oil and gas steel pipelines are typical examples of infrastructures for which appropriate mitigation measures against liquefaction-induced failures are required. For this reason, it is crucial to assess the soil liquefaction susceptibility along the pipeline Right-of-Way (RoW) and evaluate the deformations that may arise due to the occurrence of liquefaction. Since failure prevention and geohazard area avoidance is always preferable in comparison to the design of demanding mitigation measures of the application of post-failure retrofitting, the present study attempts to formulate a protocol that could: (a) be adopted for assessing the liquefaction potential of the various geological formations crossed by a pipeline RoW and, (b) be employed to assess the likelihood of the expected permanent ground displacement (PGD) along or across the proposed pipeline alignment. The proposed approach has been adopted for the studies performed regarding the Front-End-Engineering Design FEED phase of the onshore part of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which crosses the area of Greece and Albania. It is highlighted that this protocol offers a preliminary combined working approach that mainly integrates desktop study and field surveys that should be used for optimizing the pipeline route and define the distribution of the in-situ measurements.

Overhead Transmission Line Easement and Right-of-Way Cases in Crete, Greece: A Statistical Analysis of 1220 Cases from 1974 to 2019

Overhead Transmission Lines (OTLs) are used to carry High Voltage (HV) between HV substations, usually constructed at long distances from each other, thus spanning across numerous different properties. Easements, a legal term for nonpossessory rights, are essential to the utilities in order to maintain a Right-Of-Way (ROW) for construction and maintenance purposes in a corridor of land underneath the lines, and also to enforce certain restrictions within that corridor, in order to ensure the safety of both the OTLs and the public. The exact details of ROW corridors’ management vary between countries as the legislation and each utility’s approach may differ. This paper focuses on 1220 easements/ROW cases regarding the isolated HV Transmission System of the Greek island of Crete from 1974 to 2019. The various related factors are discussed and a statistical analysis of the records is performed.

Power of User Perception on Pedestrian Quality of Service

Research progress has been made in recent years in developing service or performance indicators (SPI) or methods to better measure or evaluate service or quality for pedestrians in a local context. The majority of SPIs relate objective (measurable) characteristics or attributes of the right-of-way, with the user’s perceived output variable (e.g., perceived comfort). Traditionally, these methods do not consider the user’s perspective of the input variables. However, there is evidence that the direct contact of pedestrians with the environment justifies an exploration of the contribution of perceptions to that end. This study explores the power of user perception onsite to explain the sidewalk quality of service (QoS), compared to physical and other measurable traditional inputs. Information of physical characteristics, traffic, and perceptions were acquired in 30 different urban rights of way in Bogota, Colombia. By comparing the explanatory power and the goodness of fit of different scenario models, perceptions have been found to be an important predictor to pedestrian perception of QoS. In the light of the results, this paper provides a generalized conceptual framework to explain QoS that complements the existing one and discusses the implication of the use of QoS as the outcome variable.

Improving Traffic Operations at Service Interchanges using the New Offset Diamond Design

This paper proposes the new offset diamond interchange (ODI) as an alternative design which shows potential in mitigating the limitations of failing service interchanges in relation to traffic operation. Vehicle travel time was considered as the primary measure of effectiveness (MOE) for the traffic operation analysis, while the maximum queue lengths were also analyzed. A comprehensive series of VISSIM simulation scenarios was conducted to evaluate the new ODI design in different situations of traffic demand, turning-traffic ratios, traffic distribution, and traffic composition. The results were compared with five existing and four other new interchange designs. The new ODI performed statistically significantly better than all existing designs, including the conventional diamond, parclo A, and the diverging diamond interchange (DDI). The ODI design was found vulnerable in relation to the maximum queue produced in high turning conditions with the unbalanced traffic distribution; however, the threat could be diminished by increasing the storage lengths about 80 ft. Right-of-way (ROW) costs may make the ODI a poor alternative in replacing a standard diamond, but since the ODI fits the footprint of a parclo A it could work well in replacing those interchanges.

Expanding Transmission Capacity: Examples of Regulatory Paths for Five Alternative Strategies

Transmission capacity expansion using existing lines and rights-of-way (ROW) is a strategy that deserves greater attention. The need to acquire siting approval and ROW for a new line can increase a project timeline by many years, and in some cases may even lead to project cancellation. Projects that use or expand an existing ROW face different regulatory pathways and typically result in different responses from the public and other entities than those that involve siting an entirely new line. In order to identify and compare some of the issues that arise in reconductoring existing lines, expanding rights of way for existing lines, and building entirely new lines, we obtained input from a number of PUCs and siting authorities across the United States, reviewed a large number of projects, and identified the types of approvals that different types of projects can expect. In this paper, we develop a taxonomy of technical strategies that can be used to increase the capacity in an existing transmission corridor and identify the regulatory and other issues that must be addressed in each case. We compare these options with that of building an entirely new line and illustrate the various strategies with examples drawn from U.S. transmission projects that have been undertaken over the past 20 years.

Right-of-way reallocation for mixed flow of autonomous vehicles and human driven vehicles

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are bringing challenges and opportunities to urban traffic systems. One of the crucial challenges for traffic managers and local authorities is to understand the nonlinear change in road capacity with increasing AV penetration rate, and to efficiently reallocate the Right-of-Way (RoW) for the mixed flow of AVs and Human Driven Vehicles (HDVs). Most of the existing research suggests that road capacity will significantly increase at high AV penetration rates or an all-AV scenario, when AVs are able to drive with smaller headways to the leading vehicle. However, this increase in road capacity might not be significant at a lower AV penetration rate due to the heterogeneity between AVs and HDVs. In order to investigate the impacts of mixed flow conditions (AVs and HDVs), this paper firstly proposes a theoretical model to demonstrate that road capacity can be increased with proper RoW reallocation. Secondly, four different RoW reallocation strategies are compared using a SUMO simulation to cross-validate the results in a numerical analysis. A range of scenarios with different AV penetration rates and traffic demands are used. The results show that road capacity on a two-lane road can be significantly improved with appropriate RoW reallocation strategies at low or medium AV penetration rates, compared with the do-nothing RoW strategy.