This document specifies requirements and gives recommendations on the management of geohazard risks during the pipeline design, construction and operational periods.

This document is applicable to all operators and pipelines (existing and proposed/under construction).

This document applies to onshore gathering and transmission pipelines used in the petroleum and natural gas industries.

NOTE This document is not applicable to piping and pipelines within well-defined plants and facilities, such as pump or compressor stations, processing facilities or refineries. It is assumed that the facility site as a whole will be subject to a separate geohazard assessment to evaluate applicable natural and man-made hazards. Nevertheless, this document can provide useful guidance for assessing the geohazard threat to facilities, including the pipelines within the facility.

This document is applicable to all reasonable and credible natural hazards induced by natural forces and hazards induced by human activity that manifest similarly to natural hazards collectively referred to as "geological hazards" or "geohazards", or through industry as attributed to "natural forces". Geohazards covered by this document include, but are not limited to (not given in order of significance):

— mass wasting processes, including landslides, lateral spreads, rockfalls, debris flows, avalanches, and similar processes whether naturally occurring or anthropogenic;

— land subsidence and/or sinkhole formation, whether naturally occurring such as from dissolution of salt or carbonate rock formations (karst formation) or human caused, such as from underground mining or withdrawal of subsurface fluids such as groundwater and oil and gas;

— seismic hazards, such as ground shaking, fault rupture, liquefaction, flow failures and lateral spreading or associated secondary effects, such as seismically triggered landslides;

— volcanic hazards, such as lahars, pyroclastic flows, lava flows, dam break, and volcanically induced seismicity (excluding ashfall), where such hazards can be reasonably predicted;

— hydrologic processes, such as flooding, vertical scour of river bottoms, channel migration and bank erosion, channel avulsion, rapid lake drainage;

— permafrost/periglacial processes and geothermal effects, such as thermal degradation, frost heave or thaw settlement, thermal erosion, thermokarst;

— surface (overland), trench backfill, or earthwork fill erosion;

— expansion or collapsing processes caused by expansive and collapsible soils, such as glaciomarine clays, collapsible loess, etc.

This document is not applicable to atmospheric/environmental effects, such as the following:

— high winds induced from hurricanes and tornadoes and similar storms, except where such events are reasonably predictable and will induce geohazards such as landslides, erosion, etc.;

— lightning;

— forest or brush fires;

— ashfall from volcanic eruptions.

Furthermore, this document is not applicable to cascading events, where one remote event leads to a chain of events that eventually induces a geohazard near the pipeline. It is only applicable to geohazards that directly affect the pipeline or RoW.