Environmental geophysics: Techniques, advantages and limitations

Abstract

The rapid development of industrial and urban areas in the last decades caused a significant amount of environmental degradation with serious consequences to human life, ecosystems, natural resources, land utilization, as well as to human and natural heritage. Thus, the role of site restoration and rehabilitation projects, in the context of the Management Environmental degradation, is crucial for the modern society. Environmental Geophysics comprises a relative modern part of the Geophysics discipline, aimed at determining the physical properties of the shallow sub-surface by using non invasive high-resolution geophysical techniques. The detailed knowledge of the subsurface structure is valuable for a variety of disciplines involved in the study of the shallow earth’s crust, which is directly related with human activities. In particular, Environmental Geophysics efficiently deals with technical problems arising during construction works such as karst collapse, evaporite sinkholes, landslides, mine subsidence and fault zones. Furthermore, it is involved in investigations concerning the detection of buried or abandoned waste, the location of the aquifer and part of its related properties to identify the possible presence of contaminants in the subsurface and finally, the mapping of archaeological sites. The aim of this work is to present the most familiar and robust techniques used in environmental geophysics and new methodologies of data processing and interpretation. Extensive literature research and examples from case studies are presented and analyzed. Special emphasis is given to the limitations of all applied techniques