Abstract
An integrated approach including geochemical analyses and geophysical investigations, aimed at characterizing the chemical composition of leachate and at highlighting the extent and magnitude of the plume in terms of spatial distribution is presented. The reason for the specific induced polarisation behaviour over landfills was not well understood. In this work we propose an explanation for this behaviour, which is being used to detect the presence of possible leaks and to track and delimit the pollution plume for several years.
As a case study the example of an abandoned municipal solid waste landfill, located in Comacchio County, NE Italy, is presented, where the operative conditions for any resistivity monitoring method were to be excluded because of the high salinity of the phreatic aquifer.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andres P, Cortijo M (2000) Stabilization of leachates from municipal solid waste landfill by sedimentation. J Environ Sci Heal A 35(5):883–897
Angoran YE, Fitterman DV and Marshall DJ (1974) Induced polarization: a geophysical method for locating cultural metallic refuse. Science 184:1287–1288
Aristodemou E, Thomas-Betts A (2000) DC resistivity and induced polarization investigations at a waste disposal site and its environments. J Appl Geophys 44:275–302
Armando E, Marchisio M, Ranieri G, Sambuelli L (1989) Primi risultati di uno studio fisico di un corpo di discarica di rifiuti solidi urbani (in Italian). In: Atti dell'VIII convegno annuale del Gruppo Nazionale di Geofisica della Terra Solida, Roma, 7–8 Nov 1989, pp 905–912
Barker RD (1981) Offset system of electrical resistivity sounding and its use with a multicore cable. Geophys Prospect 29:128–143
Bianchini G, Laviano R, Lovo S, Vaccaro C (2000) Clay sediments in the area surrounding Ferrara (Italy): a contribution for the environmental monitoring. Plinius (Italian supplement of the European Journal of Mineralogy) 24:38–39
Bondesan M, Giovannini A (1994) Evoluzione geomorfologica della pianura costiera fra Codigoro e Comacchio (Ferrara) (in Italian). In: Annali dell'Università di Ferrara, Sezione Scienze della Terra, vol.5(3). Università di Ferrara, Ferrara, pp 27–35
Buselli G, Davis GB, Barber C, Height MI, Howard SHD (1992) The application of electromagnetic and electric methods to groundwater problems in urban environments. Explor Geophy 23:543–555
Cahyna F, Mazac O, Venhodova D (1990) Determination of the extent of cyanide contamination by surface geoelectrical methods. In: Ward SH (ed) Geotechnical and environmental geophysics, vol 2. SEG, Tulsa, pp 97–99
Cardarelli E, Bernabini M (1997) Two case studies of the determination of parameters of urban waste dumps. J Appl Geophy 36(4):167–174
Cecen F, Gursoy G (2000) Characterization of landfill leachates and studies on heavy metal removal. J Environ Monitor 2(5):435–442
Draskovits P (1995) Detection of contaminated groundwater by geoelectrical methods. In: 1st Meeting of the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society – European section, Turin, Sept 25–27, 1995, pp 46–49
Heron G, Bjerg PL, Gravesen P, Ludvigsen L, Christsen TH (1998) Geology and sediment geochemistry of landfill leachate contaminated aquifer (Grinsted, Denmark). J Contam Hydrol 29(4):301–317
Iliceto V, Santarato G, Veronese S (1982) An approach to the identification of fine sediments by Induced Polarization laboratory measurements. Geophys Prospect 30:331–347
Iliceto V, Santarato G, Merola R, Ardizzoni F, Finotti F (1994) La polarizzazione indotta nella localizzazione di discariche di rifiuti solidi urbani. Ingegneria sanitaria ambientale, Genn.-Apr.j:63–72
Loke MH, Barker RD (1996) Rapid least-squares inversion of apparent resistivity pseudosections by a quasi-Newton method. Geophys Prospect 44:131–152
Looser MO, Parriaux A, Bensimon M (1999) Landfill underground pollution detection and characterization using inorganic traces. Water Res 33(17):3609–3616
Oldenburg DPR, McGillevry RG, Ellis RG (1993) Generalized subspace methods for large-scale inverse problems. Geophys J Int 114:12
Oldenburg DW, Li Y (1994) Inversion of induced polarisation data. Geophysics 59:1327–1341
Reynolds JM (1996) An introduction to applied and environmental geophysics. Wiley, New York, 796 pp
Santarato G, Abu-Zeid N (1998) Progetto di bonifica e recupero ambientale dei siti comunali di discarica per rifiuti urbani di Valle Isola: studi ed indagini preliminari (in Italian). Unpublished report, Comacchio County, Italy, 68 pp
Schön JH (1996) Physical properties of rocks – fundamentals and principles of petrophysics. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 583 pp
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by Comacchio County, the Environmental Office of Ferrara Province Administration and the Italian National Council of Research (contract no. 99.00715.CT05). Special thanks are due to R. De Bon, F. Forlani, F. Scoca, R. Tassinari and G. Zichella for field and laboratory assistance.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Abu-Zeid, N., Bianchini, G., Santarato, G. et al. Geochemical characterisation and geophysical mapping of Landfill leachates: the Marozzo canal case study (NE Italy). Env Geol 45, 439–447 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-003-0895-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-003-0895-x