Application of Electrical Resistivity Tomography for subsurface investigation of a dump in the city of Jaciara-MT

Abstract

In Brazil, around 15.9 million tons of urban waste are deposited in landfills. The liquid from the decomposition of the organic fraction of household solid waste, known as slurry and leachate, can cause serious environmental and public health problems. The electrical resistivity method allows checking the presence of contamination and inferring the depth of waste deposition through injections of electricity into the soil and interpretation of measured potential differences, which are capable of providing information on the distribution of electrical resistivity below the surface. The electrical resistivity method was used in this work as it is a fast, low-cost, and non-invasive alternative, that is, in principle, it does not change the physical environment. The highest resistivities (between 1, 670 and 875.5 ohm.m) were related to the Furnas and Ponta Grossa Formations and the most conductive segments (< 875.5 ohm.m) were interpreted as influenced by solid waste disposal. The resistivity values suggest that there is no apparent presence of leachate, however there is a hypothesis that the leachate is present in some points and certain depths of the dump area.