Review of techniques, challenges, and gaps in the subsurface gas release knowledge base

Underground pipelines serve as critical infrastructure for gas transmission, strategically buried for safety, environmental, and economic considerations. Despite their importance, operational challenges and external interferences can lead to underground gas leaks with potentially catastrophic consequences for both human safety and the environment. The presence of a protective soil bed introduces complexities in understanding subsurface transport phenomena and quantifying gas releases accurately. Herein, this review presents a systematic analysis of published research in the field of underground gas releases, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches that connect the lithosphere and atmosphere. The analysis highlights the broad spectrum of employed methods, including theoretical models based on fundamental principles, empirical formulations derived from experimental data, and sophisticated computational tools. A clear fundamental understanding and computational analysis, and to a lesser extent experimental, have been established to describe the migration regime. In contrast, more empirical research has addressed the crater formation regime, though focus was given to the far-field modelling following the soil ejection rather than the transient phenomena leading to the formation of the crater. Additionally, this review touches upon practical and conceptual topics, such as detection and localization techniques, and flow regimes in other gaseous flows through soil and powder beds, putting into question the applicability of some presumed granulated concepts to the flowing behavior expected beyond migration. The research landscape predominantly focuses on investigating the influence of release parameters on the release phenomena only from the atmospheric or soil domain perspective. This work provides insights that aim to first transcend both domains and then bridge the three distinct flow regimes-migration, uplift, and crater formation-despite the limited acknowledgment of the necessity of addressing all regimes concurrently through a universal approach. This review serves as a valuable resource for engineers to develop innovative solutions for the management of risks associated with underground gas leaks.