A Resolution Analysis of Two Geophysical Imaging Methods for Characterizing and Monitoring Hydrologic Conditions in the Vadose Zone

This project has been designed to analyze the resolution of two different geophysical imaging techniques (electrical resistivity tomography and cross-borehole ground penetrating radar) for monitoring subsurface flow and transport processes within the vadose zone. This is to be accomplished through a coupled approach involving large scale unsaturated flow modeling, petrophysical conversion of the resulting 2 and 3 Dimensional water content and solute concentration fields to geophysical property models and generation of synthetic geophysical data, followed by the inversion of the synthetic geophysical data. The resolution, strengths, and limitations of the geophysical techniques will then be ascertained through an analysis involving comparisons between the original hydrologic modeling results and inverted geophysical images. Increasing levels of complexity will be added to the models as the project progresses through the addition of heterogeneity in the original hydrologic property model, and by adding uncertainty to the petrophysical relationship that couples the geophysical model to the hydrologic modeling results.