Outer Continental Shelf Pipelines Crossing the Louisiana Coastal Zone: A Geographical Information System Approach

The existing crude oil, natural gas, and refined product pipeline maps of Louisiana are outdated, limited by small scale, and contain a number of significant errors. The Louisiana Geological Survey (LGS) has an ongoing program to gather accurate, large-scale maps and engineering diagrams directly from the pipeline operators to create a reliable, large-scale digital pipeline map and spatial database for statewide GIS applications. A large number of these source maps were uncontrolled, schematic, small-scale, and otherwise problematic. These maps were unsuitable for GIS database entry without extensive source research, geo-referencing,and/or field investigation, which was considered outside the scope of the original project.