Groundwater Detection Using the Pseudo-3D Resistivity Method: A History of Case Studies

Abstract

With the rapid growth of the economy and population, the desire to use groundwater supplies is increasing. In order to detect groundwater, conducting a geophysics survey is a common way to map the subsurface. This method can describe the subsurface’s physical properties. For example, the direct current (DC) resistivity method provides a resistivity map of the subsurface, in which the groundwater is normally located in low resistivity anomaly zones. However, the DC method needs to overcome the challenges of the urban environment, with its infrastructure and background noise. In this paper, we propose a pseudo-3D resistivity surveying method to solve these problems, and it is applied to situations of groundwater detection within the city environment, dam leakage, and drinking water. From the pseudo-3D resistivity surveying, we detected the low-resistivity anomaly in the area, which is interpreted as groundwater through borehole verification.