Groundwater Flow Monitoring via
Joint Time-lapse Electrical Resistivity and Self Potential Data
Tomography
Lige Bai1, Jing Li1*, Hui
Liu1, Jaiwei Tan1, Tianqi
Wang1
1 College of geo-exploration Sci. &Tech, Jilin
University, Changchun, Jilin 130026, China
*Corresponding author: Jing Li,inter.lijing@gmail.com
Key words: Groundwater Flow Monitoring; Time-lapse; Electrical
Resistivity Tomography (ERT); Self-potential (SP) Tomography
Funding Information: This work are supported by the Natural Science
Foundation of China (41874134), the Jilin Excellent Youth Fund
(20190103142JH) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
2015M571366
Summary
Revealing the dynamics of groundwater movement in the vadose zone is
crucial to groundwater management and artificial recharge. In this
study, the groundwater flow characterization of the pumping process is
monitored by the joint time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography
(ERT) and self-potential (SP) data tomography. The ERT data invert the
resistivity distribution, which relates to the variation of soil
moisture content during the pumping process. Base on the groundwater
motion feature, the SP data provide a direct way to invert the current
density and estimate the permeability. A total of 24 hours of time-lapse
surveys show a significant increase and decrease in resistivity and
permeability during water pumping and groundwater recharge, which
suggests groundwater decline and recovery process. These results have an
excellent agreement with the groundwater level monitoring result.
Combining ERT and SP data can provide a reliable way in groundwater or
other hydrogeological surveys.