Abstract
We propose a method for profiling soil permeability on a river embankment with integrated geophysical data. In this method, the unconsolidated sand model and the Glover's equation are employed for modelling seismic velocity - porosity and resistivity - porosity relationships, respectively, in order to obtain a seismic velocity – resistivity model. The clay content as a control parameter for elastic and electric properties of the soil in these two models is used for soil classification with the seismic velocity and resistivity. The effective grain size for the soil type derived as above and porosity estimated from resistivity by the Glover's equation are substituted into the Kozeny-Carman equation for estimating permeability of the soil. The proposed method is applied to an S-wave velocity profile obtained by refraction tomography and a resistivity profile from a 3D electric survey on a river embankment for estimating its soil permeability profile. Comparison of the estimated permeability with actual measurements in the laboratory permeability test of soils sampled on an excavated levee body shows that permeability can be estimated in accuracy less than one order of magnitude. This result indicates that the proposed method is promising for profiling permeability on a river embankment using integrated geophysical data.
