ERT and GPR surveys for the detection of incipient collapse areas in urban environment

Urban Resilience represents the capability of an urban system to preserve its features (in terms of public and private qualities and services) when shock events occur [1]. This topic is receiving an increasing interest for the climate change emergency which require innovative strategies for preserving the natural and anthropic resources present in the subsoil. In this framework, the Urban Geophysics could give a strong contribution to improving the knowledge of the critical issues affecting urban area [2].

One of the most interesting challenges is represented by the detection of ground collapse phenomena that can hardly reduce the safety and reliability of civil structures and infrastructures, as clearly demonstrated by the ground occurred in the Ospedale del Mare car park (Naples, Italy) [3] during the COVID-19 emergency that has brought the light on the weakness of the planning processes of the public authorities when fast decisions are required. Indeed, decision making in urban planning can be effectively supported by rational and reasoned use of the geophysical technologies able to reduce the risks imputable to the activities and decision required by the emergency planning in urban contexts.

This work focuses its attention on the capability of geophysical methodologies to detect, characterize and monitoring the presence of buried sinkholes, collapses, voids within the subsoil able to cause severe structural stability problems with rapid and non-invasive applications based on the use of Ground Penetrating Radar and Electrical Resistivity Tomographies. The studied cases showed how the cooperative use of the geoelectrical and electromagnetic methods can identify and monitor potential risks of collapses highlighting the pros and cons of the two techniques in terms of resolution and depth of study.

 

REFERENCES

[1] Lapenna V. (2016) Resilient and sustainable cities of tomorrow: the role of applied geophysics. Bollettino di Geofisica Teorica ed Applicata 58(4):237–251. https ://doi.org/10.4430/bgta0204

[2] Capozzoli L., De Martino G., Polemio M. et E. Rizzo, Surveys in Geophysics 2019, Geophysicaltechniquesfor monitoring settlement phenomena occurring in reinforced concrete buildings, Surveys in Geophysics, DOI: 10.1007/s10712-019-09554-8;

[3] Borghese L.,  Mortensen A. and R. Picheta, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/08/europe/italy-hospital-sinkhole-scli-intl/index.html (latest access 01/20/2021, January 9, 2021