VISUALIZATION OF BIOGEOCHEMICAL ZONATION USING ERI: APPLICATION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL INDUSTRY

Electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) offers promise in scanning environmentally impacted sites to evaluate biogeochemical zonation produced as a result of bioremediation. Understanding biogeochemical zonation at sites impacted with non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) is important to evaluating the level of active bioremediation present, and/or for determining if monitored natural attenuation (MNA) is an appropriate remediation strategy for a site.

Interpreting biogeochemical zonation data can be difficult when only using chemistry data, due to the heterogeneity in geology, contaminant distribution, and available microbe nutrients. The integration of chemistry data onto individual 2-D ERI subsurface images provides a cursory understanding of biogeochemical zones. Integration of monitoring well and other data sets into 3-D visualization software using the three-dimensional framework provided by multiple ERI images, provides a method to achieve a more comprehensive site understanding. The requirements for data integration for real-world LNAPL and DNAPL (light and dense NAPL) sites will be discussed, as well as strengths and weaknesses of the methodology.