Determinación de la ruta óptima para el paso de un oleoducto desde el bloque 73 del suroriente ecuatoriano hasta la costa ecuatoriana mediante el uso de GIS

Abstract

The optimal route of an oil pipeline between block 73 of the Ecuadorian southeast and the Ecuadorian coast was determined using GIS and working with data of roads, access times, land use, hydrography, topography, vegetation cover, population densities, and protected areas. The data sets that needed to be rasterized were identified and then the correspondent Euclidean distances were generated. The different layers were reclassified and their cost distance and least-cost-path determined. After determining the optimal route, the topographic profile was obtained and it was used to perform calculations of pressure losses between pumping stations and pressure reducing stations. The determined route satisfies the required parameters of topography, hydrography, roads, access times, land use, vegetation cover and protected areas; in addition, making use of the topographic profile together with the topography data, a route length of 278.36 km was determined, as well as the pressure losses in the different sections between pumping stations and pressure reduction stations.