Near surface soil characterizations through soil apparent resistivity: A case study

Soil electric resistivity is used to obtain near surface soil properties as non destructive testing at field investigations. Testing of soil electric resistivity has been applied in various contexts like: detection of soil type and rock, detection of anomalous materials of soil, groundwater exploration, landfill and solute transfer delineation. Researchers also incorporate 2-D tomography technique with apparent resistivity profile as Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) method. Existing soil resistivity model shows limitations due to empirical relationship to get true resistivity profile. So, researchers concentrate on optimization criteria for nonlinear apparent resistivity data to obtain more reliable resistivity profile. Optimizations of soil apparent resistivity profile are also performed based on multi-layer soil parameters in recent research work which also includes the empirical relationships of apparent resistivity data. Moreover, electrical resistivity of soil is changed due to soil physical properties like soil structure, water content and chemical properties which can change the results during soil characterizations through electric resistivity. In this case history, we expose the background study of different surveying criteria of apparent resistivity data. The advantages and limitations of this apparent resistivity method are shown in this case history.