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Vehicle–canine collaboration for urban pipeline methane leak detection

Nature Cities volume 2, pages 336–343 (2025)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 10 March 2025

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Abstract

Urban areas are experiencing the expansion of distribution pipeline networks due to the transition from coal to natural gas for reducing carbon emissions. However, methane leaks from these pipelines are offsetting environmental benefits and raising safety concerns. Here, to address these issues, we propose integrating vehicle-based detection systems with sniffer canines to improve the efficiency of methane leak detection and localization in urban distribution networks. A practical methane emission measurement campaign covering approximately 4,000 km of natural gas distribution pipelines across 20 Chinese cities revealed that sniffer canines accurately pinpointed 432 natural gas release sources within the 220 leak areas identified by detection vehicles. Our findings indicate notable variations in spatial gas leak density and leak-prone components across different cities, with underground steel pipelines and aboveground risers being particularly prone to leaks. This study offers a promising solution for enhancing urban infrastructure management, thereby improving public safety and environmental protection.

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Fig. 1: Test performance of the VCC strategy across 20 Chinese cities.
Fig. 2: Leak characteristics of urban distribution networks across 20 cities in China.
Fig. 3: Schematic illustration of the VCC strategy.

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Data availability

The detection data involved in this work are shown in Supplementary Data 1 and 2. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank three anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions that improved this manuscript. We also express our gratitude to Hong Kong and China Investment Limited for their support. Funding for this study was from National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 52402421 to H.L.) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BK20220848 to H.L.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

    Hongfang Lu & Dongmin Xi

  2. Hong Kong and China Investment Limited, Shenzhen, China

    Yaqin Xiang & Zhenhao Su

  3. U-Tech Engineering Company Limited, Shenzhen, China

    Yaqin Xiang

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Y. Frank Cheng

  5. Key Laboratory of Advanced Marine Materials, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, China

    Y. Frank Cheng

Authors
  1. Hongfang Lu
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  2. Dongmin Xi
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  3. Yaqin Xiang
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  4. Zhenhao Su
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  5. Y. Frank Cheng
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Contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, investigation and writing—original draft: H.L., D.X., Y.X., Z.S. and Y.F.C. Leak detection practices and data curation: H.L., Y.X. and Z.S. Formal analysis: H.L. and D.X. Supervision and funding: H.L. and Y.F.C. Writing—review and editing: H.L., D.X. and Y.F.C.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Y. Frank Cheng.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Cities thanks Hossein Maazallahi and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–5, Figs. 1–5, Tables 1–9 and References.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Data 1

Natural gas release point data.

Supplementary Data 2

Leakage level data.

Supplementary Data 3

Source data for Supplementary Fig. 3.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data.

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Lu, H., Xi, D., Xiang, Y. et al. Vehicle–canine collaboration for urban pipeline methane leak detection. Nat Cities 2, 336–343 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00183-w

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