A new method using burial measurements for risk assessment of subsea cable installations is proposed. Only methods comparing the design boundaries have previously been used to verify subsea cable installments. The disadvantage of utilizing design boundaries is the possibility of not fulfilling the risk requirements since the assumed burial depth of the cable and its measurement data can differ, leading to the challenge of assessing how the difference and its uncertainty affect burial risk. We proposed and tested the method for a scenario using seagoing vessel traffic data and sensor characteristics. The analysis is limited to white measurement noise but shows a deviation in risk estimation between the design-and measurement-based assessments. The presented result enables the approximation of the risk assessment for projects of varying specifications. The proposed statistical method is a less conservative way to assess the correct installment of a cable and possibly to evaluate verification specifications. © 2022 IEEE.

Available methods using the burial measurements to assess the subsea cable installations risks compare measurements to the design boundaries. The disadvantage of using this is that the assumed cable burial depths and their measurements can differ. However, it is unclear how the uncertainty in depth affects burial risk; hence, there is a need to verify the burial operations using a proper method to handle this aspect of risk reliability. We proposed a conservative cable burial scenario test, which evaluates the highest deviation between the measured risk and the design risk to indicate differences in risk based on the measurements. The result shows that the most significant deviation could be up to 55%. It proves that measurement uncertainty significantly affects the final risk evaluation. Moreover, this deviation in verifiable risk is not considered in today's boundary-level verification methodology. © 2022 IEEE.