Study of small earthfill dams structure using seismic refraction, ERT and self-potential methods

Small dams are used mainly by cities, industries, mines and agro-industries as a means to discipline the use of water, for diverse purposes. The need for constant monitoring and maintenance of this kind of structure is essential to guarantee its integrity, detect fractures, infiltrations, leaks, etc and therefore helps preventing accidents which can have catastrophic proportions. This paper presents the results of seismic refraction, electrical resistivity tomography and self-potential methods, performed in an integrated manner, on two earthfill dams, located in the cities of Cordeirópolis and Ipeúna, inland São Paulo state, Brazil. The objective was to aknowledge the geophysical signature to deduce geotechnical and hydrogeological parameters such as bedrock, layer length and disposition, possible weak spots in the bodies of the two earthfill dams as well as ground water preferential flow inside them.