Interurban - geophysical assessment of water dynamics and solute transport in urban soils

Urban soils are subject to strong variations of environmental conditions, like water flow, solute transport or heat budget. The research project INTERURBAN has been formed to study the dynamics of water and materials at urban locations with special consideration of the spatial heterogeneity, the organic soil substance and soil-biological transformation processes. The objectives of the research group define the target for geophysics: The development of a noninvasive conception to map the water distribution and important structural parameters with high resolution. In addition to standard methods, like Geoelectrics and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Spectral Induced Polarization (SIP) also Surface Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (SNMR) will be used. We have choosen two locations typical for urban soils: The Tiergarten (Berlin, Germany), a metropolitan park with intensive use by pedestrians, sportsmen and big events (Love Parade) and a former sewage farm in Buch at the outskirts of Berlin. The soil in Buch is highly contaminated by organic hydrocarbons and heavy metals. In this paper we show examples of the necessary methodological improvements for the application of high resolution shallow geophysics for high resolution assessment (see Muller et al., 2002).