Experimental Correlations Between Geophysical and Hydraulic Parameters from Different Inversion Procedures

This work is aimed to test the possibility of integrating different geophysical method used in near surface application and in particular in studies devoted on a better characterization of the hydraulic system and aquifer structure. We used different inversion procedures to correlate the geophysical and hydraulic parameters and to extrapolate them in those areas not covered by the corresponding survey. The parameters involved in this study were: seismic p-wave velocity from seismic tomography; resistivity, electrical conductivity and induced polarization from electrical tomography (ERT); diffusivity, hydraulic conductivity and specific storage from hydraulic tomography. The study area is located in the Friuli plain, east of Italy. The dimension of the investigated area was approximately 2000 m². We also drilled two wells, 8 m apart, used for the hydraulic cross-well acquisition. The comparison of the specific correlation functions showed that the geophysical parameter p-wave velocity and the hydraulic parameter diffusivity feature the highest correlation. The derived correlation function between the two parameters allowed us to transform the p-wave velocity tomogram into a diffusivity tomogram with high accuracy. The proposed approach has the potential to provide a problem adapted scale and accuracy for the prediction of contaminant transport in the subsurface.