{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,16]],"date-time":"2026-04-16T15:14:30Z","timestamp":1776352470229,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"20","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,12]],"date-time":"2023-10-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1697068800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)","award":["693JK32210006POTA"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["693JK32210006POTA"]}]},{"name":"Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)","award":["693JK32010011"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["693JK32010011"]}]},{"name":"Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC)","award":["693JK32210006POTA"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["693JK32210006POTA"]}]},{"name":"Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC)","award":["693JK32010011"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["693JK32010011"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Natural gas (NG) leaks from below-ground pipelines pose safety, economic, and environmental hazards. Despite walking surveys using handheld methane (CH4) detectors to locate leaks, accurately triaging the severity of a leak remains challenging. It is currently unclear whether CH4 detectors used in walking surveys could be used to identify large leaks that require an immediate response. To explore this, we used above-ground downwind CH4 concentration measurements made during controlled emission experiments over a range of environmental conditions. These data were then used as the input to a novel modeling framework, the ESCAPE\u22121 model, to estimate the below-ground leak rates. Using 10-minute averaged CH4 mixing\/meteorological data and filtering out wind speed &lt; 2 m s\u22121\/unstable atmospheric data, the ESCAPE\u22121 model estimates small leaks (0.2 kg CH4 h\u22121) and medium leaks (0.8 kg CH4 h\u22121) with a bias of \u221285%\/+100% and \u221250%\/+64%, respectively. Longer averaging (\u22653 h) results in a 55% overestimation for small leaks and a 6% underestimation for medium leaks. These results suggest that as the wind speed increases or the atmosphere becomes more stable, the accuracy and precision of the leak rate calculated by the ESCAPE\u22121 model decrease. With an uncertainty of \u00b155%, our results show that CH4 mixing ratios measured using industry-standard detectors could be used to prioritize leak repairs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s23208417","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,12]],"date-time":"2023-10-12T14:22:17Z","timestamp":1697120537000},"page":"8417","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Estimating the Below-Ground Leak Rate of a Natural Gas Pipeline Using Above-Ground Downwind Measurements: The ESCAPE\u22121 Model"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0003-0001-8649","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fancy","family":"Cheptonui","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Systems Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA"},{"name":"Energy Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80524, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1684-1843","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Stuart N.","family":"Riddick","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Systems Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA"},{"name":"Energy Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80524, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5099-3659","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anna L.","family":"Hodshire","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Energy Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80524, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2229-4946","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mercy","family":"Mbua","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Systems Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA"},{"name":"Energy Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80524, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kathleen M.","family":"Smits","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75205, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Daniel J.","family":"Zimmerle","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Energy Institute, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80524, USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"EIA (2023, August 30). 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