NON-DESTRUCTIVE TECHNIQUE TO EVALUATE

GROUNDWATER AND SOIL QUALITY

Franco Matas Francisca
UNC, FCEFyN, Ctedra de Geotecnia I,
Ortiz de Ocampo 4365, V Centenario 4365
5009 Crdoba - Argentina
e-mail: ffrancis@com.uncor.edu - franco_francisca@yahoo.com
Web contact: www.geocities.com/franco_francisca
Soil and groundwater quality are geoindicators that assess the effect of human activities on
environment. Some potential causes of contamination are industrial and agricultural activities,
leakage in municipal landfills, septic tanks, underground storage tanks, ducts and injection wells.
Contamination modifies soil properties such as hydraulic conductivity, wettability, dielectric
permittivity, swelling potential, crack formation and electric conductivity. These effects can be
explained by the analysis of phase interaction, surface effect and double layer behavior.
Organic and inorganic contaminants are usually determined from the chemical analysis of the
pore fluid of samples obtained in the field. Recent studies show that non-destructive techniques can
be employed for this purpose. The influence of contamination on soil electrical properties allows
using geophysical exploration (based on electrical properties or electric waves propagation) to
detect the presence of contaminants. This work shows the ability of dielectric measurements to
detect contaminants in soils. This allows evaluating the potential application of dielectric
measurements as a method to evaluate soils and groundwater quality.
Inorganic contaminants increase electrical conductivity of soils due the higher ion
concentration. Soil contamination with inorganic fluids can be very important in the proximity of
abandoned waste sites, and landfills. On the other hand, non-polar organic contaminants (such as
petroleum, fuel oil, pesticides, and hydrocarbons) modify the dielectric permittivity of soils.
Dielectric permittivity is a complex parameter, k* = k+ k, where k depends on polarizability of
the material, and k depends on soil conductivity at a given frequency.
Soils are particulate materials composed by a solid phase (particles) and voids. Additionally,
water, air, electrolytes, organic fluids, or mixtures of them, can be present inside soil pores. Hence,
dielectric permittivity of soils depends on the present phases, interaction between them, and their
dielectric permittivity and relative volumetric content. For example, permittivity of sand saturated
with water (e.g. k35) results higher that permittivity of the same sand partly saturated (e.g. k15)
or contaminated with organic fluids (e.g. k 8). The higher permittivity of water (k=78) respect to
air (k=1) and organic fluids (k2) explains these trends. Hence, when soils are permeated and fluid
phase changes, soil dielectric permittivity tends to vary (Francisca, 2001, Ph.D. Thesis, National
University of Cordoba, Argentina). This variation allows monitoring the displacement of fluids
inside soil pores by means of dielectric measurements. These measurements can be made in
laboratory tests by means of Networks and Impedance Analyzers, and in the field with the Time
Domain Reflectometer (TRD), Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), resistivity measurements, and
Radio Frequency Modulation (RFM) devices mounted in the static Cone Penetration Test (CPT).
It is concluded in this work that dielectric measurements can be employed to detect the
presence of contaminants in soils, and to monitoring contaminant plumes. Therefore geophysical
methods based on electrical soil properties are very useful tools for evaluating soil and groundwater
quality.