Abstract
The study of permafrost is one of the most important areas of study and monitoring in the Arctic zone, both in the Russian Federation and around the world. Changes in the condition of permafrost can lead to emergencies caused by emergencies during the operation of capital construction facilities for industrial purposes, or infrastructure facilities. To track such changes, it was proposed to create a reference observation network for monitoring permafrost soils. This network is intended for a comprehensive survey of the territory. As a result of this research, a number of proposals are presented, the focus of which is both commercial (for subsurface users) and managerial (for state structures).
Keywords: development of the Arctic, observation network, permafrost, permafrost regime stations, subsoil use.
Introduction
Today, the Arctic activities are being actively implemented. In 2014, the government program "Social and economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation" was approved, which provided for the further important course of "Ensuring economic management in permafrost conditions". Certain measures are to be taken to implement the objectives of the program. The process of changing permafrost soils can lead to accidents, as it happened in the North of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In Norilsk, on May 29, 2020, the fuel storage tank got depressurized, some of the oil products fell into the Ambarnaya River. Emergency services later reported that the maximum permissible concentrations of pollutants in the rivers, where diesel fuel had got after the accident, were exceeded. In order to track the changes in pollution index, it is proposed to create a reference observation network for monitoring permafrost soils. The network is intended for the comprehensive study of the territory. In Moscow, in 2018, there was a meeting of the Council for the Arctic and Antarctic under the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on the topic "Legislative support for the preservation of permafrost soils within economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation", where A.M. Brekhuntsov made several commercial and administrative proposals related to the study of permafrost soils. The proposals were made in the framework of A.M. Brekhuntsov’s report "Proposals for legislative support for the creation of a reference observation network for monitoring permafrost soils (using the example of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District)".
Global natural and climatic changes are sources of environmental threats, primarily for territorial public systems [1,2,3] of polar and circumpolar latitudes [4,5,6,7,8]. On the territory of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation1, which is characterized by a high anthropogenic involvement in economic turnover, transformation processes are more active than in other natural zones of the Earth and sectors of the Arctic, primarily within the borders of the West Siberian and Middle Siberian subarctic territories [9, 10]. "The hummock swamps of the subarctic territories of Western Siberia are a remarkable indicator of climate change. Today, in this region, due to a more dramatic warming of the climate, due to the high degree of its continentality, there are processes that the Scandinavian countries, Canada and Alaska, will face only in a few years" [11, p. 185]. Even though several Russian and foreign authors had made similar assumptions at the beginning of the century, the further history of observations did not confirm this. In addition to the environmental uncertainty of the present and the future, it is also necessary to note the unfavorable Arctic ecological heritage [12,13,14,15,16], the objects of which require monitoring and recultivation [32, 33]. It is obvious that in such conditions, the price of an error caused by taking wrong government and management decision in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation becomes extremely high.
This became clear in the emergency zone in Norilsk in 20202, when the lack of timely monitoring information led to the spill of thousands of tons of petroleum products at the CHP 3 of the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company. The problem exposed the need for operational monitoring of the state of permafrost soils. To avoid irrational financial expenses, it is necessary to implement a landscape approach [17,18,19,20]. Otherwise, results can be achieved on the information support of the state of the permafrost soils, but they will not be linked to the state of the subsoil, natural waters, air masses, respectively, they will respond to narrowly specialized requests.
Since the answers to environmental challenges are needed today, then solutions must be efficient in their bureaucratic implementation. Global changes are fraught with the loss of precious time and economic losses. The goal is to develop a set of measures aimed at organizing information-enabled management decisions that determine the environmental safety of life in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.
To achieve this goal, we have formulated the following tasks:
1. to systematize data on the geoinformation monitoring parameters at subsoil use facilities, by the example of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District,
2. to develop a technology for organizing automated monitoring of environmental parameters,
3. to determine the legal state mechanisms for implementing the system of automated monitoring of environmental parameters in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.
The object of the model study is the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. The choice of this Arctic territory is due, on the one hand, to the presence of high anthropogenic pressure on the environment, primarily from the objects of the profile gas industry (Figure 1), on the other hand, to the high vulnerability of regional landscapes to natural and climatic transformations, including due to the complex geomorphological and geocryological structure of the area within the boundaries of the hydrocarbon field (Figure 2). Figure 2, as an example, shows the geocryological conditions of the Tazovskoe field. The terraces located here are highlighted on the map: Sartansky, Karginsky, Zyryansky. The following plains are highlighted as well: Kazantsevskaya plain and Salekhard plain. The values of the seasonally thawed and seasonally frozen layers in meters are shown over the entire area [32, 33].
As mentioned before, there is a high anthropogenic impact on the Arctic zone. In the absence of a single reference observation network for monitoring permafrost soils, accidents may occur.
Fig 1. Gas production in Russia, billion cub. m
It should be also noted that the autonomous district has developed a single geographic information database3, which allows presenting the current and predicted state of territorial public systems in a digital format on a modern technological basis. The database can be found on the official website of the Unified Cartographic System4. The presence of large multinational vertically integrated oil companies on the territory has led to the spread of digitalization and internetization in the autonomous district, including production fields. The distribution of the main natural gas reserves and resources is widespread (Figure 3) within the borders of the region, inland waters, inland sea, and the adjacent shelf, so information and telecommunications support are expected to be at a high level, with a wide territorial coverage. To digitalize monitoring of the southern outskirts of the autonomous district, it is advisable to connect the existing pool of communication nodes of existing subsoil users, forest users, and fish producers. As a result, in the medium-term planning, the technological preconditions for the organization of monitoring of the landscapes of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District have been developed. These preconditions significantly reduce the limits of state financing, and the search for investors is also underway.
Fig 2. Geomorphological conditions and value of seasonal thaw / seasonal frozen layers on the territory of the Tazovskoe field (1:200 000).
Methods of research: map-making (geoinformation), statistical method, method of modeling. Methodology of landscape research.
The materials for the creation of map-making studies were data from the copyright-patented database owned by LLC " MNP "GEODATA", "Project "Regional Data".
.
Fig 3. Natural gas production forecast
Within the borders of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, modern separate geoinformation systems for monitoring the state of the natural environment have been formed. The data is positioned in the formats of industrial environmental monitoring, corporate requirements, as well as in the parameters of Infological models 5 of state information systems. On the one hand, this allows to own significant amounts of information for making a management decision; on the other hand, the fragmentation and autonomy of data generation devalues the accumulated geoinformation databases. Validation of the obtained data is necessary, for example, to identify "methane concentration anomalies for various geological conditions of the land and water areas of the Arctic" [22].
A rational solution to the geoinformation systematization of data [23,24,25] is the creation of an appropriate state information system that would automatically record the parameters of the permafrost soils and air masses. The subjects of data provision can be subsoil users and supervisory, scientific and research state organizations in this area. It is also possible to connect other natural resource users who have the appropriate technical infrastructure. The object of subsoil user data generation is an automated monitoring station integrated with an observation well with a depth of, for example, up to 400 m. According to the scheme of geocryological zoning of the Nadym-Taz zone throughout the territory, there is a predominant distribution of monolithic permafrost strata there.
In general, the values of the frozen layers vary and naturally increase from the floodplain of the Pur River to the above-floodplain terrace. The greatest value (300-400 m) of permafrost is observed on the Zyryanskaya plain, located in the west of the site. Slightly smaller values (150-300 m) are confined to the areas of development of floodplain terraces I and II on the left bank of the Pur River within the floodplain of the Pur and Nagarka-Tabyakha rivers (left tributary of the Pur River), the values of frozen layers reach 100-150 m here.
Since the history of active subsoil use in the autonomous region has a spatial differentiation (Fig. 4), the organization of the tracking network should also be differentiated. At the same time, if there is a history of observations, in the future it can always be correlated in historical retrospective view. Considering the history of hydrocarbon development, we propose to rank the following 4 grades: deposits discovered in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and after 1990s. Thus, a higher density of permafrost stations should, in our opinion, correlate with the terms of putting the fields into operation, which logically correlates with technological and environmental risks.
According to the calculations of the average cost for the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, the construction of a monitoring well requires 0.1% of the cost of the producing well. This point of view is based on the analysis of hundreds of deposits in Western Siberia. In fact, the technical and economic calculation of the project for the development of any field always includes the cost of environmental protection measures in the amount of 5-10 % of the capital investment.
Undoubtedly, the monitoring system of permafrost behavior is an important part of these measures and the costs of it can and should be considered in the specified item of expenses of the subsoil user.
Maintenance of the stations also does not involve significant costs, as it corresponds to the tasks of industrial environmental monitoring and can be designed with maximum automation. Taking into account the concept of the economy decarbonization which is being now actively considered in the external world6 [26,27,28,29,30], these accounting costs can be further transformed into economic profit, investment income. Averted potential environmental and technological damage, as exemplified by the Norilsk disaster, will far exceed the proposed capital and operating costs of the surveillance network.
Fig 4. Years of discovery of hydrocarbon deposits in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District
2. development of technology for organizing automated monitoring of environmental parameters.
A schematic representation of the proposed technology7 for monitoring permafrost state is presented in Figure 5. The proposed conceptual solution is based on the orientation to the automation of data acquisition, the complexity of equipment application, and operation in harsh climatic conditions. The aboveground part is a module for measuring meteorological parameters. The borehole part gives characteristics of permafrost state.
Fig.5 Observation station of permafrost soils
Data transmission is based on offline Internet transmission. Parameters shall be received from gaged sensors, which eliminates the influence of the human factor on obtaining the true picture. For the technological maintenance of the station, the meteorological module has an appropriate microclimate. The task of providing internetization in the conditions of Arctic latitudes in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District has been solved by subsoil users who have actively implemented SCADA systems [31] in production.
3. definition of legal mechanisms for implementing the system of automated monitoring of environmental parameters in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.
The legal aspect of the organization of this monitoring process fits into the terms of licensing of the use of subsoil resources. In the regulatory legal acts8 the relevant functions of safe subsoil use are already assigned to subsoil users, which can be specified at the level of by-laws. We do not expect significant additional organizational pressure on the business. The prescribed framework rules are formalized into uniform rules of the game, allowing management and investors to determine their place in the overall security network, including at the level of comparative assessments.
Results
Considering the current regulatory legal frameworks, we recommend following activities to the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use9:
- to include, in the terms of the license agreement of the subsoil user, the obligations to create and maintain a network of stations at the developed field for monitoring the state of permafrost; the network of stations shall be included in the state register,
- to provide the creation and operation of permafrost regime stations within the boundaries of the unallocated subsoil fund of the pilot territory,
- to differentiate the proposed monitoring requirements for subsoil users depending on the start time of field development,
- to organize the research work "Study of the introduction of permafrost stations in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation", according to the results of which it is important to justify for the pilot territory (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District):
-
location of the network of stations,
-
requirements for estimated transmitted parameters,
-
standard design of the station for the subsoil user.
- to collect historical literary information, geoinformation and facts that allow recording the current state of permafrost.
Thus, today in the Russian Federation, there are enough prerequisites for the creation of a modern network of integrated monitoring of the permafrost soils state. Conceptual solutions allow us to create this network quickly, with minimal normative transformations for nature management in harsh natural and climatic conditions.
1 According to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dd. 02.05.2014 №296 (rev. 05.03.2020 №164).
2 Minutes of the meeting of the Government Commission for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations and Fire Safety dd. 03.06.2020 №3.
3 Resolution of the Administration of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District dd. 06.10.2006 No. 445-A "On the Concept of creating and developing a Unified Integrated Information System of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District for 2006-2010"
4 Unified Cartographic System of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District - https://karta.yanao.ru/eks.
5 Infological (conceptual) model - a model based on a set of local user preferences or a system of queries that abstract the set of information needs of users. The Infological model specifies the relations existing in the communication area [21, 43].
6 Global energy transformation: A roadmap to 2050 (2019 edition). URL https://www.irena.org/publications/2019/Apr/Global-energy-transformation-A-roadmap-to-2050-2019Edition
7 The technology was presented in 2018 by A.M. Brekhuntsov at the meeting of the Council for the Arctic and Antarctic under the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on the topic " Legislative support for the preservation of permafrost soils within economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation » URL http://council.gov.ru/events/news/89390/
8 Law of the Russian Federation dd. 03.03.1995 No. 27-FZ "On Subsoils"; Decree of the President of the RSFSR dd. 20.08.1991 No. 66 "On Ensuring the Economic Basis of the Sovereignty of the RSFSR"
9 According to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dd. 17.06.2004 No. 293 "On Approval of the Regulations on the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use (rev. Government Resolutions dd. 23.09.2020)
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