4.3.1 Similarities in approach

Though it is not mentioned explicitly, both provisions of the Directive on the geological storage, or rather the relevant Guidance Documents (Guidance Documents 1-4, 2011), and legislation of the province of Alberta in Canada require similar approaches for onshore sites regarding measuring properties of the stream delivered to the storage site, conditions within reservoir, or the use of surface monitoring and environmental methods.

In all cases the monitoring approach is risk based, with an emphasis on early warning systems and pressure monitoring. Monitoring of well integrity (both existing and new wells) is key. The use of time-lapse seismic data seems almost standard, even if detectability of CO2 in the reservoir in some cases can be questioned. Only the ROAD project seems to be more explicit on the use of time-lapse seismic data, in the sense that it is considered as a contingency monitoring method. In other words, only in case of irregularities detected by other methods, time-lapse seismic data acquisition will be considered.