TY - JOUR

T1 - Integrated Assessment of Ground Surface Displacements at the Ketzin Pilot Site for CO2 Storage by Satellite-Based Measurements and Hydromechanical Simulations

AU - Lubitz, Christin

AU - Kempka, Thomas

AU - Motagh, Mahdi

N1 - Funding Information: Manuscript received December 13, 2017; revised June 30, 2018 and November 2, 2018; accepted November 27, 2018. Date of publication January 8, 2019; date of current version January 21, 2019. This work was supported by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association in the frame of Helmholtz Alliance "Remote Sensing and Earth System Dynamics". (Corresponding author: Christin Lubitz.) C. Lubitz was with Section 1.4 Remote Sensing, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam D-14733, Germany (e-mail:, kontakt@ christinlubitz.de).

PY - 2019/1/8

Y1 - 2019/1/8

N2 - There has been growing interests in recent years for the safe underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) as a potential technology for preventing this greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere. As suitable locations for geological storage may be diverse, the applicability of various geodetic and geophysical methods for surveillance and monitoring purposes must be investigated. In this paper, we evaluate the ground surface displacement at the Ketzin pilot site for CO 2 storage in Germany, using satellite-based measurements and hydromechanical simulations. The InSAR observations, using more than four years of TerraSAR-X data from 2009 to 2013, reflect the stability of the Ketzin pilot site (long-term velocity <0.5 mm/year) in conjunction with the accumulated CO 2 volume in the reservoir. This can be due to the low overall pressure change, with a maximum of 16 bar, which is not causing significant surface displacement. However, such overall stability can be interrupted temporarily, as detected within the InSAR time series for a distinct period of noninjection from May to December 2012 (subsidence of 2.8 mm). This is supported by our hydromechanical simulation results, exhibiting a maximum ground surface subsidence of approximately 1 mm during this period, and by a comparison with variations in bottomhole pressure, indicating a positive correlation of 80%.

AB - There has been growing interests in recent years for the safe underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) as a potential technology for preventing this greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere. As suitable locations for geological storage may be diverse, the applicability of various geodetic and geophysical methods for surveillance and monitoring purposes must be investigated. In this paper, we evaluate the ground surface displacement at the Ketzin pilot site for CO 2 storage in Germany, using satellite-based measurements and hydromechanical simulations. The InSAR observations, using more than four years of TerraSAR-X data from 2009 to 2013, reflect the stability of the Ketzin pilot site (long-term velocity <0.5 mm/year) in conjunction with the accumulated CO 2 volume in the reservoir. This can be due to the low overall pressure change, with a maximum of 16 bar, which is not causing significant surface displacement. However, such overall stability can be interrupted temporarily, as detected within the InSAR time series for a distinct period of noninjection from May to December 2012 (subsidence of 2.8 mm). This is supported by our hydromechanical simulation results, exhibiting a maximum ground surface subsidence of approximately 1 mm during this period, and by a comparison with variations in bottomhole pressure, indicating a positive correlation of 80%.

KW - Correlation analysis

KW - InSAR time series monitoring

KW - Ketzin

KW - persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI)

KW - small baseline subset (SBAS)

KW - subsurface pressure data

KW - underground carbon dioxide (CO2) storage

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060680099&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2886637

DO - 10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2886637

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85060680099

VL - 12

SP - 186

EP - 199

JO - IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing

JF - IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing

SN - 1939-1404

IS - 1

M1 - 8606239

ER -