Geophysics at Australian Landfills: Case Studies

Abstract

Landfills will continue to provide optimal solutions for residual waste disposal at most locations in Australia. Selected case studies, demonstrate recent applications of surface and borehole geophysical technologies at some existing industrial and domestic landfills to address a range of geotechnical and environmental issues. Electromagnetic, P and S-wave seismic, resistivity, magnetic and gravity methods provide responses that locate the landfill margins and their base, leachate pathways and provide volume estimates for dense materials in the waste. Geophysical technologies are best used at the early stages of the investigations where they provide information that is not easily obtained with other invasive technologies. While these technologies are often cost-effective they do not reliably discriminate different buried wastes, subtle contamination sources nor are they generally capable of sensing groundwater contamination at human risk levels. Regardless of these limitations, geophysics will continue to be applied at Australian landfills and fill sites.