Integrated Geophysical Measurements on a Test Site for Detection of Buried Steel Drums

TL;DR

This study evaluates the effectiveness of magnetometry, electrical resistivity tomography, and electromagnetic induction in detecting buried steel drums, finding magnetometry and electromagnetic methods successful while resistivity mainly detected terrain changes.

Contribution

The paper compares three geophysical methods for detecting buried steel drums, highlighting their relative effectiveness in a controlled test site.

Findings

Magnetometry successfully detected buried steel drums.

Electromagnetic induction survey also detected the drums.

Electrical resistivity tomography mainly identified terrain changes, not the drums.

Abstract

Geophysical methods are increasingly used to detect and locate illegal waste disposal and buried toxic steel drums. This study describes the results of a test carried out in clayey-sandy ground where 12 empty steel drums had previously been buried at 4-5 m below ground level. This test was carried out with three geophysical methods for steel-drum detection: a magnetometric survey, electrical resistivity tomography with different arrays, and a multifrequency frequency-domain electromagnetic induction survey. The data show that as partially expected, the magnetometric and electromagnetic induction surveys detected the actual steel drums buried in the subsurface, while the electrical resistivity tomography mainly detected the changes in some of the physical properties of the terrain connected with the digging operations, rather than the actual presence of the steel drums.