On the spatio-temporal dynamics of soil moisture at the field scale

Tremendous progress has been made with respect to ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipment, data acquisition, and processing since the establishment of GPR as a tool for soil water content determination in vadose zone hydrology about 25 yr ago. In this update, we aim to provide a critical overview of recent advances in vadose zone applications of GPR with a particular focus on new possibilities for multi-offset and borehole GPR measurements, the development of quantitative offground GPR methods, full-waveform inversion of GPR measurements, the potential of time-lapse GPR measurements for process investigations and hydrological parameter estimation, and recent improvements in GPR instrumentation. We hope that this update encourages the soil hydrology, groundwater, and critical zone community to embrace GPR as a viable tool for soil water content determination and the elucidation of subsurface hydrological processes.

Measuring Soil Water Content with Ground Penetrating Radar: A Decade of Progress

Landform characterization using geophysics—Recent advances, applications, and emerging tools

Full waveform inversion of ground-penetrating radar data is an emerging technique for the quantitative, high-resolution imaging of the near subsurface. Here, we present a 2-D frequency-domain full waveform inversion for the simultaneous reconstruction of the dielectric permittivity and of the electrical conductivity. The inverse problem is solved with a quasi-Newton optimization scheme, where the influence of the Hessian is approximated by the L-BFGS-B algorithm. This formulation can be considered to be fully multiparameter since it enables to update permittivity and conductivity values within the same descent step, provided we define scales of measurement through a reference permittivity, a reference conductivity, and an additional scaling factor. Numerical experiments on a benchmark from the literature demonstrate that the inversion is very sensitive to the parameter scaling, despite the consideration of the approximated Hessian that should correct for parameter dimensionalities. A proper scaling should respect the natural sensitivity of the misfit function and give priority to the parameter that has the most impact on the data (the permittivity, in our case). We also investigate the behaviour of the inversion with respect to frequency sampling, considering the selected frequencies either simultaneously or sequentially. As the relative imprint of permittivity and conductivity in the data varies with frequency, the simultaneous reconstruction of both parameters takes a significant benefit from broad frequency bandwidth data, so that simultaneous or cumulative strategies should be favoured. We illustrate our scaling approach with a realistic synthetic example for the imaging of a complex subsurface from on-ground multioffset data. Considering data acquired only from the ground surface increases the ill-posedness of the inverse problem and leads to a strong indetermination of the less-constrained conductivity parameters. A Tikhonov regularization can prevent the creation of high-wavenumber artifacts in the conductivity model that compensate for erroneous low-wavenumber structures, thus enabling to select model solutions. We propose a workflow for multiparameter imaging involving both parameter scaling and regularization. Optimal combinations of scaling factors and regularization weights can be identified by seeking regularization levels that exhibit a clear minimum of final data misfit with respect to parameter scaling. We confirm this workflow by inverting noise-contaminated synthetic data. In a surface-to-surface acquisition configuration, we have been able to reconstruct an accurate permittivity structure and a smooth version of the conductivity distribution, based entirely on the analysis of the data misfit with respect to parameter scaling, for different regularization levels.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00944271/document

Two-dimensional permittivity and conductivity imaging by full waveform inversion of multioffset GPR data: a frequency-domain quasi-Newton approach

This paper presents an overview of the strengths and limitations of existing and emerging geophysical tools for landform studies. The objectives are to discuss recent technical developments and to provide a review of relevant recent literature, with a focus on propagating field methods with terrestrial applications. For various methods in this category, including ground-penetrating radar (GPR), electrical resistivity (ER), seismics, and electromagnetic (EM) induction, the technical backgrounds are introduced, followed by section on novel developments relevant to landform characterization. For several decades, GPR has been popular for characterization of the shallow subsurface and in particular sedimentary systems. Novel developments in GPR include the use of multi-offset systems to improve signal-to-noise ratios and data collection efficiency, amongst others, and the increased use of 3D data. Multi-electrode ER systems have become popular in recent years as they allow for relatively fast and detailed mapping. Novel developments include time-lapse monitoring of dynamic processes as well as the use of capacitively-coupled systems for fast, non-invasive surveys. EM induction methods are especially popular for fast mapping of spatial variation, but can also be used to obtain information on the vertical variation in subsurface electrical conductivity. In recent years several examples of the use of plane wave EM for characterization of landforms have been published. Seismic methods for landform characterization include seismic reflection and refraction techniques and the use of surface waves. A recent development is the use of passive sensing approaches. The use of multiple geophysical methods, which can benefit from the sensitivity to different subsurface parameters, is becoming more common. Strategies for coupled and joint inversion of complementary datasets will, once more widely available, benefit the geophysical study of landforms.Three cases studies are presented on the use of electrical and GPR methods for characterization of landforms in the range of meters to 100. s of meters in dimension. In a study of polygonal patterned ground in the Saginaw Lowlands, Michigan, USA, electrical resistivity tomography was used to characterize differences in subsurface texture and water content associated with polygon-swale topography. Also, a sand-filled thermokarst feature was identified using electrical resistivity data. The second example is on the use of constant spread traversing (CST) for characterization of large-scale glaciotectonic deformation in the Ludington Ridge, Michigan. Multiple CST surveys parallel to an ~. 60. m high cliff, where broad (~. 100. m) synclines and narrow clay-rich anticlines are visible, illustrated that at least one of the narrow structures extended inland. A third case study discusses internal structures of an eolian dune on a coastal spit in New Zealand. Both 35 and 200. MHz GPR data, which clearly identified a paleosol and internal sedimentary structures of the dune, were used to improve understanding of the development of the dune, which may shed light on paleo-wind directions.

Ground-penetrating radar is a fast noninvasive technique that can monitor subsurface structure and water-content distribution. To interpret traveltime information from single common-offset measurements, additional assumptions, such as constant permittivity, usually are required. We present a fast ground-penetrating-radar measurement technique using a multiple transmitter-and-receiver setup to measure simultaneously the reflector depth and average soil-water content. It can be considered a moving minicommon-midpoint measurement. For a simple analysis, we use a straightforward evaluation procedure that includes two traveltimes to the same reflector, obtained from different antenna separations. For a more accurate approach, an inverse evaluation procedure is added, using traveltimes obtained from all antenna separations at one position and its neighboring measurement locations. The evaluation of a synthetic data set with a lateral variability in reflector depth and an experimental example with a large variability in soil-water content are introduced to demonstrate the applicability for field-scale measurements. The crucial point for this application is the access to absolute traveltimes, which are difficult to determine accurately from common-offset measurements.

Philip Schiwek

Papers

Continuous and simultaneous measurement of reflector depth and average soil-water content with multichannel ground-penetrating radar