One of the major concerns related to geological storage of carbon dioxide below the seafloor or lake beds is the possibility of leakages from the reservoir and subsequent effects on the aquatic environment, which cannot completely be excluded. Underwater gas monitoring should be a required part of the establishment and secure management of sub-seabed CO2 storage sites.

As a contribution to the EC-supported project CO2ReMoVe (Research, Monitoring, Verification), BGR's underwater gas monitoring team aimed at the development of monitoring tools and methods for free gas emanations under water. Devices and methods were tested and evaluated by using so-called natural analogues where gases naturally escape the underground.

The results of the intensive research activities have shown that an effective and reliable underwater gas monitoring must be based on a multi-level approach which combines different methods and techniques on various working levels, scales and times. However, a comprehensive underwater gas monitoring concept can be reduced to three basic methodological steps.
This is what we call the DVC concept:

1. Detection,
2. Verification and
3. Characterization, including a quantification of gas releases by their long-term monitoring.

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