Electromagnetic soundings to detect groundwater contamination produced by intensive livestock farming

With soil depth, model resistivity decreased, reaching values between 6 and 8 Ω m at the unsaturated and the saturated zone. This decline indicated that the leachates from animal manure had increased soil salinity. In the second year of soundings, the layers below the pen showed an important decrease of resistivity. On the other hand, variation of the concentration of nitrates, chlorides and sulfates remained the same both in the phreatic and in the deep well along the four years of groundwater analysis. The concentration of sulfates and nitrates showed a maximum value in the second and in the third year after the beginning of the animal confinement activity in the pen. The following year, with the increase of precipitations, these concentrations decreased. Thus, the modelling of electromagnetic soundings proved to be a useful tool to determine the effect of leachate contamination in feedlot pens.