Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
8915393 | Journal of Applied Geophysics | 2018 | 31 Pages |
Abstract
Non-invasive geophysical investigation using magnetic gradiometry, magnetic susceptibility survey and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) was carried out on the Sunyani Municipal Assembly (SMA) solid waste disposal (SWD) site. The study was aimed at delineating the physical boundaries and the area extent of the waste deposit, mapping the distribution of the waste at the site, detecting and delineating zones of leachate contamination and its preferential migration pathways beneath the waste deposit and its surroundings. The results of both magnetic susceptibility and gradiometric methods displayed in anomaly maps clearly delineated the physical boundaries of the waste deposit with an approximate area extent of 82,650â¯m2 that are characterised by high magnetic susceptibilities between 426â¯Ãâ¯10â5 SI and 9890â¯Ãâ¯10â5 SI. They also revealed high magnetic anomalies erratically distributed within the waste deposit attributable to its heterogeneous and uncontrolled nature. The high magnetic anomalies outside the designated waste boundaries were also attributed to indiscriminate deposition of the waste. Similarly, the ERT sections delineated and characterised zones of leachate contamination beneath the waste body and its close surroundings as well as pathways for leachate migration with low resistivity signatures up to 43.9â¯Î©m. In spite of the successes reported herein using the ERT, this research also revealed that the ERT is less effective in estimating the thickness of the waste deposit in unlined SWD sites due to leachate infiltration into the ground beneath it that masks the resistivities of the top level ground and makes it indistinguishable from the waste body.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Geophysics
Authors
Isaac Appiah, David Dotse Wemegah, Van-Dycke Sarpong Asare, Sylvester K. Danuor, Eric Dominic Forson,