Similarly to most industrial activities, the oil industry can affect the environment at several stages. The greatest impact is the release of waste into the environment in concentrations that are not natural. Virtually in all cases, the adverse impact can be minimized or eliminated through the implementation of a proper waste management plan. Over the past few years the oil industry has placed greater emphasis on minimizing the environmental impact of its operations in all the main phases of a hydrocarbon reservoir life: from appraisal to field development, from production and recovery to reservoir decommissioning. As a consequence, the oil industry is facing important technical challenges, approaching with great interest and expectation new emerging technologies, such as nanotechnologies and alternative solutions, like CO 2 underground storage. This study provides an overview of the most interesting solutions that have been proposed and critically highlights their potential benefits and drawbacks. The following paper focuses on some of the new approaches that have already changed the routine operation workflow, while others are currently being tested and may yet require further improvement.
This work focuses on the capabilities and limitations of the Advanced Satellite SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) Interferometry (A-DInSAR) in wooded and mountainous regions, with the aim to get insights on the performances for studying slow-moving landslides. The considered critical issues are related to the SAR acquisition geometries (angle of incidence of the satellite line of sight , ascending and descending geometries) and to the physical and morphological features of the slopes (land use, aspect and slope angles), which influence the measuring points coverage. 26 areas in Lombardy Region (Italy), affected by known slope instability phenomena, have been analyzed through A-DInSAR technique, using COSMO-SkyMed images. The results allowed to outline general considerations about the effectiveness of A-DInSAR analysis of a single dataset (descending or ascending dataset), selected accordingly to the aspect of the slopes. Moreover, we aimed to quantitatively describe the capability to update the state of activity of several previously mapped landslides using satellite SAR Interferometry results. Although in a wooded and mountainous region, where the chances of retrieving radar targets for satellite SAR analysis are generally low, the A-DInSAR results have allowed to detect landslides’ reactivations or new landslides and to update the inventory for about 70% of the investigated areas.
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