Time Lapse ERT Monitoring of Olive-oil Mills' Wastes (OOMW) Using Simulation and Experimental Data

Abstract

Olive oil production is one of the most important activities in the Mediterranean area and in Greece in particular. Olive oil production generates a large volume of liquid wastes which can cause severe pollution due to the high organic and in-inorganic load that they convey. In this work we assess the ability of time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) technique to monitor Olive-oil mills' wastes (OOMW) movement into an aquifer. Test involve performing extensive synthetic modelling using computer generated models for cross-hole ERT arrangements and applying various 4D time lapse inversion processing to the monitoring data. Further, 4D time lapse inversion was performed to cross-hole ERT data obtained during a tank experiment which involved simulation of OOMW movement into a saturated aquifer. Results validate the applicability of cross-hole time lapse ERT to monitor OOMW movement and help to decide ways for optimum data processing and collection.