Environmental security of the European Cross-Border Energy Supply Infrastructure

The Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on “Environmental security of the European cross-border energy supply infrastructure” was held in Moscow, Russia, from 30 to 31 October 2012. It was organized by Academician Victor Osipov and Professor Alexey Victorov (Sergeev Institute of Environmental Geoscience, Russian Academy of Sciences) and Professor Martin Culshaw (British Geological Survey and University of Birmingham) in the framework of the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme, under the patronage of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The workshop dealt with a wide spectrum of environmental security issues for the European cross-border energy supply infrastructure, including: – The impact of environmental hazards on the energy supply infrastructure – Environmental problems for underwater oil and gas transportation systems – The scientifi c grounds for the design of environmental monitoring systems for the energy supply infrastructure – Remote sensing control for environmental security of the energy supply infrastructure – GIS techniques for environmental monitoring Besides these topics, attention was given to conceptual issues of environmental and energy security and the role of education, to help resolve environmental problems for cooperation in the development of the European energy supply infrastructure. The Workshop participants regarded development of new approaches to environmental and geohazard monitoring as one of the most important tools for environmental security of the European cross-border energy supply infrastructure. Thus, the main scientifi c result of the ARW was working out requirements and stating conditions for the development of a new generation of environmental monitoring systems for increasing environmental security of the infrastructure.