Case Study on the Effect of Anthropogenic Noise on Induced Polarization Images of an Oil Spill Site in an Urban Environment.

Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) is widely used for environmental applications. In recent years, Induced Polarization (IP) has emerged as a promising tool for the characterization of different organic and inorganic contaminants and for the monitoring of remediation processes. However, most contaminations occur in urban areas or at industrial sites, where the presence of cultural noise (anthropogenic structures) can result in a distortion of electrical measurements. Hence, the main objective of this work is to understand the effect of anthropogenic structures, such as pipes and reinforced concrete foundations, on ERT and IP imaging results.