Quantitative water content estimation in landfills through joint inversion of seismic refraction and electrical resistivity data considering surface conduction

Abstract

The disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) in landfills is the prevalent method of waste management at the global scale. However, the production of landfill gases due to the methanogenic fermentation of wet MSW is a possible threat to human health and accounts for a substantial contribution to the global greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, information regarding water content is critical as it is an important factor triggering methane production in MSW landfills. In this study, we propose a petrophysical joint inversion scheme to quantitatively solve for the water content (WC) in landfills based on seismic refraction as well as electrical resistivity data collected at two different frequencies. In this way, we also take into account the contribution of the surface conductivity to the observed electrical response, which is crucial for a reliable quantification of the WC. Our results reveal a high water content within the MSW unit (WC > 20%) for areas characterized by a strong polarization response (normalized chargeability Mn > 5 mS/m). Such areas can be related to an increased biogeochemical activity as evidenced by the detected methane production. We observe consistent estimates between the water content resolved through the proposed joint inversion scheme and values measured in waste samples with a median percentage error of 17%. Our study demonstrates the possibility to obtain reliable estimates for the WC in MSW landfills through the petrophysical joint inversion of seismic and electrical data when surface conductivity is explicitly considered.