Assessing sustainability risks in natural gas pipeline infrastructure: a systems-based incident analysis framework for social, environmental, and economic impacts

As global energy demands grow, the sustainability of non-renewable energy infrastructures, such as natural gas pipelines, poses critical challenges to society, the environment, and the economy. This study adopts a systems-based incident analysis (SIA) framework to assess sustainability risks in natural gas pipeline infrastructure, focusing on social, environmental, and economic impacts and highlighting how failure events in pipeline operations contribute to sustainability concerns. With more than a decade of incident data (2010–2013) from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) as a case study, the framework highlights how pipeline failures contribute to sustainability concerns. Key risk factors, including failure causes, frequencies, and consequences, are examined across pipeline segments: gathering, transmission, and distribution. The analysis reveals that social risks are more prominent in distribution pipelines, environmental risks are a key concern for gathering pipelines, and economic risks affect all pipeline segments. Additionally, the sustainability risk matrix shows corrosion failure as the highest risk for gathering pipelines (78.5%), equipment damage for transmission pipelines (15.8%), and excavation damage in distribution pipelines (33.6%). This sustainability risk assessment emphasizes the need for integrated mitigation strategies that address these interconnected risks to ensure the resilience and sustainability of natural gas infrastructure during the energy transition.