Exploration Geophysics

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Delineation of leachate pathways using electrical

methods: case history on a waste plaster landfill in
South Korea

Sung-Ho Song, In-Ky Cho, Gyu-Sang Lee, Hwan-Ho Yong & Jae-Yeon Um

To cite this article: Sung-Ho Song, In-Ky Cho, Gyu-Sang Lee, Hwan-Ho Yong & Jae-Yeon Um
(2019): Delineation of leachate pathways using electrical methods: case history on a waste plaster
landfill in South Korea, Exploration Geophysics, DOI: 10.1080/08123985.2019.1700109

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08123985.2019.1700109

Published online: 10 Dec 2019.

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EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS
https://doi.org/10.1080/08123985.2019.1700109

Delineation of leachate pathways using electrical methods: case history on

a waste plaster landfill in South Korea
Sung-Ho Songa , In-Ky Chob , Gyu-Sang Leea , Hwan-Ho Yonga and Jae-Yeon Uma
a Rural Research Institute, Korea Rural Community Corporation, Ansan, South Korea; b Department of Geophysics, Kangwon National
University, Chuncheon, South Korea

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

A waste plaster landfill site, established as a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) sheet pile sur- Received 29 November 2019
rounded by a slurry wall to isolate possible contaminants within the landfill, was investigated Accepted 29 November 2019
using electric survey techniques. A sheet pile is an effective barrier wall for contaminated KEYWORDS
leachate containment, unless there are damaged zones within the pile. However, the perfect Electrical resistivity;
insulating properties of the pile make it difficult to apply the electrical resistivity method to mea- environmental geophysics;
sure the containment ability of the pile. To locate damaged zones in the sheet pile, which can imaging; inversion
act as pathways for the contaminated leachate, a potential difference (PD) profiling technique
was applied. Through three-dimensional (3D) modelling, PD profiling demonstrated efficacy in
locating damaged zones in the sheet pile. Moreover, a 3D survey was conducted to delineate
the leakage pathways through the sheet pile, as well as the leachate distribution throughout the
landfill. Before the 3D inversion of measured resistivity data, erroneous data caused by the sheet
pile were rejected to minimise distortion of the inversion results. 3D inversion showed the sheet
pile to be highly resistive overall, especially at shallow depths; however, further inspection via
PD profiling identified several areas of damage in the pile. These damaged zones from PD pro-
filing coincided well with the low resistivity zones present near the surface in the 3D inverted
image. Furthermore, major leaks were found below the burial depth of the sheet pile. Thus, it
was demonstrated the PD profiling and 3D resistivity survey can locate damaged zones in the
sheet pile and delineate leakage pathways over the landfill site.

Introduction
Surface impoundments and landfills are the most com-
mon sites for the disposal and storage of large quan-
tities of industrial solid waste. Leachate produced by
landfills is frequently toxic and contains substances that
could cause contamination if released into nearby sur-
face water or groundwater sources (Para 1988). Various
isolation technologies, including liners, sheet piles, and
slurry walls, prevent contaminant transfer within the
landfills and surface impoundments. The sheet pile con-
sists of a flexible high-density polyethylene (HDPE) bar-
rier; this barrier is effective, as long as it can be emplaced
without puncture or imperfect sealing. However, small
tears or cuts in the sheet pile can lead to major con-
taminant leakage. Moreover, the sheet pile bottom is
susceptible to leakage if it is not adequately keyed in the
impervious layer. Therefore, a general survey system for
the condition of the sheet pile is indispensable to pre-
vent the leakage of contaminants from landfill sites into
the natural environment.
The detection of leaks through landfill liners has
become increasingly important over the past two
decades. Various methods have been developed to
locate leakage zones in the liners to facilitate mitiga-
tion measures to remedy the contamination. One such
method, the electric potential difference (PD) profil-
ing technique, is predominantly used to detect and
locate leaks in polyethylene (PE) liners. The HDPE liner
forms a high resistance barrier to electric current flow
between the waste material confined in the site and the
surrounding soil (Shultz, Duff, and Peters 1984; Boryta
and Nabighian 1985; Para 1988; Para and Owen 1988).
If the liner is physically punctured, conductive fluid
flows through the leak, thus establishing a current path-
way through the liner. Mapping the equipotential sur-
faces/potential gradient over the impoundment surface
via current flow enables detection of leaks in the liner.
The electrical resistivity method has been widely
used in landfill surveys. In most studies of landfill sites,
the two-dimensional (2D) resistivity method has been
used to map landfill geometry (Reynolds and Taylor
1996; Bernstone and Dahlin 1997) and to detect com-
positional variations (Furuichi and Tanka 1993; Yuval
and Oldenburg 1996; Bernstone et al. 2000; Guerin et al.

CONTACT In-Ky Cho choik@kangwon.ac.kr Department of Geophysics, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, Kangwondo 200-701, South
Korea
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here. https://doi.org/10.1080/08123985.2019.1700109

© 2019 Australian Society of Exploration Geophysics

2 S.-H. SONG ET AL.
2004) and bedrock contamination (Aristodemou and
Thomas-Betts 2000; Yoon et al. 2003; Abu-Zeid et al.
2004; Naudet et al. 2004). Full three-dimensional (3D)
resistivity imaging can also be applied in strongly vari-
able environments to confirm the position of the land-
fill boundaries, leachate pathways, and bedrock con-
tamination sites (Chambers, Ogilvy, and Meldrum 1999;
Ogilvy, Meldrum, and Chambers 1999; Chambers et al.
2002; Dahlin, Bernston, and Loke 2002; Ogilvy et al.
2002; Chambers et al. 2005). However, these aforemen-
tioned studies were conducted at landfill sites where
sheet piles were not installed.
In this study, electrical surveying techniques, includ-
ing PD profiling and 3D electrical resistivity surveys,
were applied to the phosphate-gypsum (PG) landfill site
located in the southern coastal area of South Korea.
The landfill is covered with HDPE tarpaulins to pro-
tect against rainfall infiltration, and the HDPE sheet pile,
which is packed by slurry wall on all sides, is installed to
a depth of 20 m to prevent leachate from making its way
to the lower part of the landfill and to the sea. This sheet
pile complicates conventional resistivity surveying, as
HDPE acts as an electrical insulator. Numerical experi-
ments were carried out to analyse the effect of HDPE
sheet piles on electrical resistivity data. A PD profiling
method and procedure for removing erroneous data
caused by the insulating sheet pile are presented. The
applicability of these techniques was examined based
on limited field data.
Site description
The survey area is located near a chemical corporation
that engages in the manufacture, sale, and export of fer-
tilisers and chemicals in South Korea. Generally, calcium
sulphate is produced as a by-product in the phosphatic
fertiliser industry and is recycled in the gypsum industry
Figure 1. Cross-section of the study area.
as gypsum board, bonds, and plaster. However, waste
plaster is commonly deposited in the landfill, as it is pro-
duced in large quantities without the establishment of
a recycling or disposal plan.
Leachate results from precipitation entering the
landfill or from moisture that exists in the waste when
it is dumped. The leachate migrates from the waste and
carries with it dissolved or suspended contaminants.
If uncontrolled, landfill leachate can enter groundwa-
ter and surface water supplies, causing contamina-
tion. Therefore, one of the most important problems
in designing and maintaining a landfill is managing
the leachate generated when water passes through
the waste. In this gypsum plaster landfill, the reaction
of leachate with gypsum can generate large volumes
of hydrogen sulphide, which may be released in the
leachate and may also form a large component of the
landfill gas.
In this landfill site, waste plaster is dumped on
an impermeable clay liner to prevent the downward
migration of the contaminants. This landfill was covered
with HDPE tarpaulins to provide an impermeable barrier
to rainfall infiltration to the waste plaster, in an attempt
to prevent the release of contaminants into the sur-
rounding seawater or groundwater, as well as to control
gas/odour emissions. Additionally, to isolate the con-
taminants within the designated area, the HDPE sheet
pile (burial depth: 20 m) was constructed in conjunction
with a cement-bentonite slurry wall as a vertical bar-
rier to restrict leachate flow (Figure 1). The impervious
nature of HDPE and its general resistance to corrosive
chemicals has been proven to exceed those of clay liner
material generally used in landfills. The key factor in the
use of an HDPE sheet pile is to produce an effective
seal between the sheet and the landfill. HDPE sheet pile
emplacement requires a trench of sufficient size and
slope. The trench must be excavated to an impervious

Figure 2. Electrical resistivity survey lines in the landfill site where the sheet pile was constructed.
zone, wherein the sheet pile is keyed in and sealed to
prevent leakage at the sheet pile bottom. This method is
generally limited to isolation of shallow contamination
(9–12 m) distributed over a relatively small area (U.S.
EPA 1985).
Data acquisition
PD profiling and a 3D resistivity survey were carried out
on the slope of the landfill. The survey area extended
from 0 to 500 m along the x-axis and from 0 to 70 m
along the y-axis. The survey comprised five horizontal
lines parallel to the x-axis and three vertical lines paral-
lel to the y-axis, as shown in Figure 2. The vertical lines
were established to improve the resolution of linear
features oriented parallel to the x-axis and the data den-
sity (Chambers et al. 2002), although apparent resistivity
data have no meaning when current and potential elec-
trode pairs are separated by the sheet pile. Considering
the depth of investigation of the resistivity method, the
station spacing tangential to the surface was set to 5 m
for all survey lines.
An automatic resistivity instrument with eight chan-
nels was used for data collection. For PD profiling, a pos-
itive current electrode was placed at a point 5 m away
from the sheet pile in an upward direction; the nega-
tive electrode was grounded far away from the source.
PD was then measured along the survey line (HLine3)
5 m away from the sheet pile in the downward direc-
tion. For the resistivity survey, 2D resistivity data were
collected at five horizontal lines and three vertical lines
over the landfill site. Basically, the dipole–dipole con-
figuration was adopted for all lines. For the horizontal
survey lines, the double-spaced dipole–dipole and the
modified pole–pole configurations (Yi, Kim, and Song
2006) were additionally used to enhance the depth of
the investigation.
EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS 3
Potential difference profiling
When a current electrode pair is placed at one side of
the sheet pile and the potential is measured along the
survey line at the opposite side, the measured potential
value should be zero, as the sheet pile blocks current
flow due to its insulating properties. However, if there
are damaged zones such as tears or holes in the sheet
pile, the potential value around the damaged zones
will become larger. Therefore, the damaged zone can
easily be identified in the PD profile along the survey
line parallel to the sheet pile. PD profiling has been
widely used until concept of apparent resistivity was
introduced by Wenner (1912); this approach allows for
quantitative interpretation because the damaged zone,
which provides the only path for current flow, acts as a
virtual source. The potential value decreases as the dis-
tance from this virtual source location increases. As a
result, the PD crosses zero at the damaged or leaking
zones.
In this survey area, the potential at the side oppo-
site the current source is not zero, as some amount
of current can flow under the sheet pile at the 20-m
depth. However, the potential will show a greater value
just above the damaged zone that works as the current
path. Thus, the peak in the potential directly indicates
the horizontal location of the damaged zone, and the
zero crossover point in the PD profile coincides with the
damage location.
Notably, although PD profiling is practical and cost-
effective for damage location identification, it should
be applied with caution. PD profiling has a shallow
investigation depth and range, because the current is
strongly channelled along the low resistivity zone near
the current source. Therefore, this method is effective
when the damaged zone is isolated and close to the
current source; otherwise, the damaged zones cannot
be defined precisely. Furthermore, the resistivity value
4 S.-H. SONG ET AL.
Figure 3. Conceptual model of the damaged HDPE sheet pile.
A current source is placed at the front side of the sheet pile and
the PDs at the back side of the sheet pile are measured along
the survey line parallel to the sheet pile.
is assumed to be constant along the survey line. The
characteristics of the survey site examined in this study
satisfied these conditions.
Numerical example
Figure 3 shows a conceptual model of a damaged HDPE
sheet pile. At the front side of the sheet pile, a positive
current electrode (C 1 ) was placed at a point 5 m away.
A PD survey line with 5-m electrode spacing was estab-
lished at the opposite side of the sheet pile, 5 m away.
For the convenience of mesh generation, the thickness
and depth extent of the sheet pile were set to 1.25 and
20 m, respectively. The width of the damaged zone was
assumed to be 1.25 m, and the depth to the top of the
zone was set to 2.5 m. HDPE, as an insulator, has a resis-
tivity of 1.6 × 1013 ohm-m (Omnexus 2019). However,
the sharp contrast in resistivity between the HDPE sheet
pile and background can cause a numerical error. To
alleviate this problem, the resistivity values of the sheet
pile and the background medium were assumed as
1.6 × 106 and 10 ohm-m, respectively. For the given 3D
model, the PD was calculated using the finite element
method (FEM).
Figure 4 shows the calculated PD profile along the
survey line when 1 A of current is injected into the
ground. If the sheet pile is in good condition (no leaks),
the zero crossover point should appear at the point
x = 45 m, i.e. at the same x-coordinate as that of the cur-
rent electrode. However, the crossover point appears
instead at x = 60 m, which is interpreted as the clos-
est point to the damaged zone. Therefore, this method
can effectively identify the damaged zone at the zero
crossing of the PD profile, although the depth is not
resolved.
Figure 4. PD profile for the model given in Figure 2. The zero
crossover point directly indicates the damage zone location.
Field data interpretation
The PD profiling technique was then applied to the
sheet pile established on the slope of a waste plaster
heap, to locate leaks. Figure 5 shows the PD profiles for
a positive current electrode located at a point 5 m away
from the sheet pile in the upward direction of the slope.
The station spacing was set to 5 m, and the measured PD
was normalised by the transmitted current. Figure 5(a)
shows the PD profile along the survey line when the
current electrode was placed at the point x = 100 m.
The zero crossover point occurred at x = 95 m, not far
from the x-coordinate of the current source. At first, it
appeared that the sheet pile was not damaged; how-
ever, there is a possibility that the current electrode was
placed near the damaged zone, as the measured PD was
high compared with other PD values. Although some
geological structures can cause an anomalous PD read-
ing, the very high values for the measured PD make this
scenario unlikely.
Figure 5(b) represents the PD profile, which con-
verged to zero as the distance from the current
electrode increased, when the current electrode was
located at the point x = 235 m. Although there was
some fluctuation around x = 200 m, a zero crossover
point clearly appeared at x = 225 m, shifted 10 m away
from the location of the current electrode. Correspond-
ingly, these results indicate leakage zone develop-
ment near x = 225 m. Figure 5(c) shows the PD pro-
file when the current electrode was located at the
point x = 380 m. Similar to the other profiles, the zero
crossover point clearly appeared at x = 360 m, shifted
20 m away from the location of the current electrode.
Consequently, a damaged zone was identified near
x = 360 m.
Effect of the HDPE sheet pile
The potential distribution around the HDPE sheet pile
is likely to be severely distorted because it is a perfect
insulator that completely blocks current flow through it.

Figure 5. PD profiles along the survey line parallel to the
sheet pile when a current electrode is located at the point (a)
x = 100 m, (b) 235 m, and (c) 380 m.
If we assume that the current sources are placed at one
side of the sheet pile, the potential will increase on the
current source side, given that the current is confined in
the half-volume of the half-space. When the survey line
is established parallel to the sheet pile, the measured
PD also becomes large because the current sources and
measuring point are located on the same side of the
sheet pile. Thus, the apparent resistivity becomes larger
than that without the sheet pile. On the other hand, the
potential is zero at the opposite side, as all current flows
EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS 5
completely reflect at the sheet pile. In such a case, the
resistivity measurements have no meaning.
However, the sheet pile in this area was constructed
only to a depth of 20 m, and it was covered with a
thin soil layer. Therefore, the potential has some finite
value, even at the opposite side of the current dipole,
as current will flow under the sheet pile or through
the surface soil layer. Moreover, the measured poten-
tial or its difference will be very small, and the signal-
to-noise ratio becomes poor. This occurs when the n-
spacing is small in the dipole–dipole measurement. As
shown in Figure 6(a), we assumed a survey line cross-
ing the HDPE sheet pile. The sheet pile of 106 ohm-m
was assumed to be established to a depth of 20 m. For
the model given in Figure 6(a), the apparent resistiv-
ity pseudo-section shown in Figure 6(b) was obtained
through 2D FEM modelling. As expected, the apparent
resistivity becomes very small when the current and
potential dipoles are separated by the sheet pile and
the n-spacing is small. The value of the apparent resis-
tivity is slightly lower than the resistivity of the host
medium when the current and potential dipoles are
placed at the same side and near the sheet pile. Further-
more, the apparent resistivity becomes very large when
one of the current and potential dipoles cross the sheet
pile. Generally, a high apparent resistivity zone should
occur in the pseudo-section when a resistive body exists
near the surface. The resistivity method assumes that
the subsurface medium is electrically conductive even
though the medium can be resistive or conductive. In
other words, some current must flow through the sub-
surface medium to apply the resistivity method. There-
fore, the resistivity method may not be suitable in this
case, given that the HDPE sheet pile is a perfect insu-
lator. Figure 6(c) represents the inversion result for the
dipole–dipole data given in Figure 6(b). An extremely
high resistivity zone appears near the surface, indicating
the sheet pile; however, the depth of this highly resistive
zone is about 5 m. Moreover, an extremely conductive
zone arises just below the highly resistive zone. There-
fore, the inverted model differs considerably from the
true one, which means that a conventional 2D inver-
sion of the resistivity data cannot define the sheet pile
effectively.
Consequently, not all of the apparent resistivity data
can be used in the inversion. When the current and
potential electrode pairs are separated by the sheet
pile, the apparent resistivity data, showing small values,
would rather be rejected before the inversion. Here-
after, for simplicity of discussion, the apparent resistivity
data, in which the current and potential electrode pairs
are separated by the sheet pile, are denoted as erro-
neous data. When these erroneous data are rejected,
the inversion result may be smoothed to the point that
it fails to define the sheet pile, as the inversion would
become an underdetermined problem due to an insuf-
ficient amount of data. Despite this problem, even the
6 S.-H. SONG ET AL.

Figure 6. Conceptual model of the sheet pile (a), the apparent resistivity pseudo-section (b), and the inversion results for the full
data (c).

Figure 7. Inversion results for a conceptual model of the sheet pile. The erroneous apparent resistivity data, contained in the
triangular zone in Figure 6(b), were rejected before the inversion.
2D inversion result is at least not severely affected by the
rejection of erroneous data. In the case of 3D inversion,
a large amount of data acquired from other survey lines
was used in the inversion, which improves the reliabil-
ity of the interpretation. There may be other approaches
than the data rejection technique adopted in this study
that can define the sheet pile and damaged zones more
clearly. However, the rejection of erroneous data has
the advantage of being easily applied, without any
modification of the inversion algorithm, and provides
reasonable images that mimic the actual subsurface
structure.
To analyse the effect of data rejection, 2D inversion
was conducted after rejecting data contained in the tri-
angular zone in Figure 6(b). Although many data were
rejected at the central part of the pseudo-section, the
2D inversion results shown in Figure 7 provide a more
reasonable image than that from the full data inversion.
The high resistivity zone produced by the sheet pile
is clearly defined at the shallow part of the section. In
particular, the extremely low resistivity zone appearing
just below the resistive zone disappears, and the highly
resistive zone extends to a certain depth, even though it
is blurred and obscured due to insufficient data and the
limited resolving power of the resistivity method. Con-
sequently, it is necessary to reject these erroneous data
before inversion to actively suppress the resulting low
resistivity zone; otherwise, the low resistivity zones in
the inverted section may be misinterpreted as leakage
zones. Despite the advantages discussed, rejecting erro-
neous data has its drawbacks, in that a highly resistive
zone appears over a wider area than the actual sheet
pile.
EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS 7
Figure 8 represents the 2D inversion results for
dipole–dipole data acquired along the survey line,
VLine1, when the HDPE sheet pile is located between
30 and 35 m. In the apparent resistivity pseudo-section
shown in Figure 8(a), the data contained in the triangu-
lar zone correspond to erroneous data for the case in
which the current and potential dipole pairs are sepa-
rated by the sheet pile. The erroneous data have some
finite value because some amount of current may flow
under the sheet pile and through the thin soil layer
above the sheet pile. Figure 8(b,c) shows the inversion
results for the full data and for the data after rejection,
respectively. The inversion results for the full data seem
to fail to image the sheet pile. Although the high resis-
tivity zone occurs near the surface, it does not extend
to the full depth. Moreover, a low resistivity zone devel-
ops just below the high resistivity zone. The conductive
zone corresponds to the erroneous data. In contrast, as
shown in Figure 8(c), the high resistivity zone (indicat-
ing the sheet pile) develops to a depth in the inver-
sion results for the data after rejection, although the
zone appears to be widely spread and blurred at certain
depths.
Distortion of the inversion images was also observed
in other survey lines. Figure 9 shows the inversion
results for survey lines VLine2 and VLine3. Before the
inversion, all erroneous data regarding the current and
potential dipoles separated by the sheet pile were
rejected. Note that the sheet pile is located between 25
and 30 m for survey line VLine2, but between 30 and
35 m for survey line VLine3. Similar to the image shown
in Figure 8(c), the high resistivity zone extends to a great
depth, which suggests that the sheet pile plays a key
8 S.-H. SONG ET AL.

Figure 8. Apparent resistivity pseudo-section acquired at the survey line VLine1 (a), the inversion results for the full data (b), and
after rejecting erroneous data (c).

Figure 9. Inversion results for data acquired at survey lines VLine2 (a) and VLine3 (b) when erroneous data were rejected before
inversion.
role in blocking the leakage of leachate through the
sheet pile.
3D Interpretation
To delineate the leakage pathway from the PG land-
fill, we performed 3D inversion for 2D resistivity data
along six horizontal lines and three vertical lines over
the landfill site. For all survey lines, the station spac-
ing was set to 5 m, and a dipole–dipole array was
adopted. As mentioned in the previous section, the
erroneous data occurring in the vertical survey lines
were rejected, as they were likely to severely distort
EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS 9
the inversion results. Moreover, all noisy data were also
rejected during data editing. Then, all 2D apparent resis-
tivity data sets obtained along individual survey lines
were merged. The merged data were inverted using
the 3D inversion program DC_3DPro (Kim 2010), which
adopts an iterative least-squares method based on FEM
modelling. To avoid numerical error in the forward mod-
elling, a mesh system was established in which the num-
ber of elements between two adjacent electrodes was
at least four. Moreover, each inversion block was set
to have four modelling elements along the horizontal
axis and two to four elements along the depth axis.
The 3D inversion program used in this study adopted
10 S.-H. SONG ET AL.
Figure 10. Volume-rendered resistivity distribution over the landfill site.
Figure 11. Resistivity section along the sheet pile. The high resistivity zone appearing near the surface indicates that the sheet pile
works well as a cut-off wall.
a smoothness constraint algorithm based on the Active
Constraint Balancing technique (Yi, Kim, and Chung
2003), in which the regularisation parameter is automat-
ically determined through the analysis of the parameter
resolution matrix and its spread function during the
inversion process.
Figure 10 depicts the volume-rendered resistivity
distribution over the landfill obtained from the 3D inver-
sion. The sheet pile parallel to the x-axis was established
on the slope of the dumped heap of the PG landfill;
it was positioned at y = 29 m when the value of the
x-coordinate was less than 310 m, and at y = 24 m oth-
erwise. If the sheet pile works well as a barrier wall, the
leachate will impound at the upper part of the sheet
pile; thus, a low resistivity zone would appear in the
upper part and a high resistivity zone in the lower part of
the sheet pile. On the other hand, if there is a damaged
zone in the sheet pile, leachate that accumulates in the
upper part will leak through the sheet pile into the lower
part. Then, the lower part of the sheet pile becomes sat-
urated with the leachate, thus creating a low resistivity
zone. Consequently, the appearance of a low resistivity
zone at the lower part of the sheet pile can be inter-
preted as evidence of leakage through the sheet pile. In
the inverted image, the deposited waste plaster shows
resistivity of several tens of ohm-m, whereas the sheet
pile resistivity is on the order of hundreds of ohm-m. The
sheet pile is clearly imaged as a highly resistive band
parallel to the x-axis, especially at the surface. The upper
part of the sheet pile shows a low resistivity; however,
a highly resistive zone dominates the lower part of the
sheet pile. Apparently, the sheet pile works well as a
barrier wall. However, many low resistivity zones were
found in the section at y = 0, revealing severe leakage.

Figure 12. Stripped 3D resistivity distribution superimposed on the isosurface map of 3 ohm-m. The white dotted circles (x = 220
and 360 m < x < 370 m) represent the location where the PDs are measured.
Figure 11 represents the resistivity section along the
sheet pile. The high resistivity zone to the depth of
5–10 m indicates the sheet pile, suggesting that the
sheet pile works as an effective barrier wall at a shal-
low depth. However, intermediate and low resistivity
zones appeared just below the high resistivity zone;
many of them extended to a great depth. Therefore,
the role of the sheet pile as a barrier wall weakened
sharply with depth. Highly conductive spots observed
just below the resistive zone can be considered dam-
aged areas in the sheet pile; a considerable amount
of leachate may pass through these damaged zones.
However, a large amount of leachate seemed to flow
through the deeper medium than the burial depth
of the sheet pile, as evidenced by the low resistivity
zones (marked as A to D) that developed in the deep
section at a depth of 20 m or more. In other words,
the major leakages are interpreted to have occurred
below the burial depth of the sheet pile. The leak-
ages through the damaged zone may partly contribute
to the development of low resistivity zones at certain
depths.
Figure 12 represents the stripped resistivity distribu-
tion, where the upper part of the total volume-rendered
resistivity distribution is removed and superimposed on
the isosurface map of 3 ohm-m to effectively locate
and delineate the leakage pathways that developed
over the landfill site. The low resistivity zones were
interpreted as leakage pathways because plaster satu-
rated with contaminated water is likely to be more con-
ductive than dry plaster. We identified two major low
resistivity zones: zone A (280 m < x < 300 m) and zone
B (360 m < x < 370 m). The resistivity values in these
zones were less than 3 ohm-m. The low resistivity zone
EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS 11
A was interpreted to result from the contaminants flow-
ing out of the central part of the plaster heap dumped
several years ago. The low resistivity zone B is associated
with the contaminated water from the unconsolidated
plaster deposited in the right-upper part of the plaster
heap. Unconsolidated plaster seems to have a higher
porosity and water content, as it was dumped more
recently. Of course, the possibility of seawater inflow
cannot be ruled out, because the landfill site is located
close to the coastline, and the anomalously conductive
zones A and B are below sea level. In all cases, however,
the leachates from the landfill appeared to flow into the
sea.
Aside from zones A and B, we found two moder-
ately low resistivity zones C and D. The low resistivity
zone C is clogged by the high resistivity zone that devel-
oped at the lower end of the landfill, implying that the
contaminated water is floating or confined within this
zone, and thus there is no significant release of contam-
inants into the sea. However, the low resistivity zone D
is interpreted to be gradually expanding, as an abun-
dant amount of contaminated water accumulated in
the upper right side of the plaster heap.
Several low resistivity zones were observed in the
shallow section that were suspect; these zones were
connected to low resistivity zones at depth. Therefore,
it can be interpreted that the contaminated water pass-
ing through the damaged zones moves downward and
in the direction of the low resistivity zones. The contami-
nated water through the damaged zone at x = 260 and
280 m seemed to move downward into zone A, and the
leakage at x = 340 m appeared to flow into zone B. The
leachate through the damaged zone at x = 360–380 m
was likely released into zone C.
12 S.-H. SONG ET AL.
The white dotted circles shown in Figure 12 indi-
cate the location where the zero crossings are mea-
sured in the PD profiling. At x = 220 m where the zero
crossing appears at the PD profile shown in Figure 5(b),
a low resistivity zone was found near the surface. Sim-
ilarly, the low resistivity anomalies appeared over the
range of 360 < x < 370 m. In the PD profile shown
in Figure 5(c), the major zero crossing occurred at
x = 360 m, although a slight fluctuation of the pro-
file curve was evident near point x = 370 m. From Fig-
ures 6 and 12, one can conclude that these zero crossing
points in the PD profiles coincide well with the low resis-
tivity anomalies in the 3D inverted image, supporting
the use of PD profiling as an effective tool to locate
damaged zones in the sheet pile at shallow depths.
In the PD method, the current injected from a point
source tends to concentrate along the nearest path
of lower resistivity. Therefore, neither the investigation
range not investigation depth of this method are large.
This means that the PD method is particularly effective
at finding the damaged zone near the current source,
especially when it is isolated. If there are many dam-
aged zones near the current source, it may be difficult
to resolve each of them individually. Furthermore, the
PD method assumes that the resistivity value is constant
along the measuring line. However, in reality, the resis-
tivity value depends on the measurement position. As
a result, the actual measured PDs differed according to
the local resistivity values, making the interpretation of
the PD profile somewhat difficult. Despite these prob-
lems, however, PD profiling is a practical method for the
simple detection of damaged zones.
Conclusions and discussion
Chemical corporations must deal with the proper dis-
posal of waste by-products, such as the waste plaster
produced as a by-product of phosphatic fertilisers. Here
we examined waste plaster that had been deposited for
several years at a landfill site located in a coastal area.
In this landfill, an HDPE sheet pile was established to a
depth of 20 m to prevent acidic leachate from leaking
into the lower part of the landfill and ultimately into the
sea. To delineate the leakage pathway in the waste plas-
ter landfill, electrical methods were applied. First, a PD
profiling method was used to locate the damaged zone
in the sheet pile, and then 3D interpretation of resistivity
survey data was carried out to identify the leakage path-
ways through the sheet pile, as well as to determine the
leachate distribution over the landfill site.
The damaged zones in the sheet pile can be effec-
tively identified in PD profile measurements along the
survey line parallel to the sheet pile. The sheet pile, as
an electrical insulator, completely blocks current flow.
From PD profiling techniques, two points are suspected
as potential damage zones, where the zero crossing
appears in the PD profile along the survey line. Although
the PD profiling method must satisfy some conditions
for success, the zero crossing point in the PD profile
coincides well with the low resistivity zone in the 3D
inversion result. Therefore, the PD profiling method
looks to be a practical tool to effectively detect dam-
aged zones in the sheet pile.
3D interpretation of resistivity survey data was car-
ried out to delineate leakage pathways over the waste
plaster landfill site. Before 3D inversion of resistivity
data, the effect of the sheet pile, especially when the
survey line was set to cross the sheet pile, was numeri-
cally analysed. The numerical analysis indicated that the
inversion result was severely distorted by the erroneous
data occurring in the triangular zone, which appeared
when the current and potential electrode pairs were
separated by the sheet pile. Thus, these erroneous data
were rejected before inversion. The landfill site is cov-
ered with HDPE tarpaulins to prevent rainfall penetra-
tion, and damage to the tarpaulins could not be avoided
during electrode installation. As a result, the survey
lines were insufficient to precisely define the 3D resis-
tivity distribution over the landfill site; nevertheless, the
inverted image provides a fairly good representation of
the 3D resistivity distribution.
In the 3D inversion results, the sheet pile is clearly
defined as the high resistivity band parallel to the x-axis,
and plausibly attains success in blocking the leachate
from leaving the landfill. However, the role of the sheet
pile seems to be limited to a shallow depth. Most leaks
occur below the burial depth of the sheet pile. This is
supported by the appearance of widespread low resis-
tivity zones at a depth of 20 m or more. On the other
hand, many low resistivity zones in the shallow section
were suspected leakage zones. Leakages through these
damaged zones of the sheet pile flow into the low resis-
tivity zones that develop at some depth and combine
to create large leakage pathways in the lower boundary
area of the landfill.
These results demonstrate that 3D resistivity survey
and PD profiling were effective methods for locating
damaged zones in the sheet pile and delineating leak-
age pathways over the landfill site. These two methods
are expected to be complementary to each other.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by Korea Environment Industry &
Technology Institute (KEITI) through Subsurface Environment
Management (SEM) Project funded by Korea Ministry of Envi-
ronment (MOE) (2018002440004), and Basic Science Research
Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea
(NRF) funded by the Korea Ministry of Science, ICT & Future
Planning (2017R1A2 B4001905).
 EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICS 13

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