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STUDY TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF USING A GROUND-PENETRATING RADAR FOR MORE EFFECTIVE REMEDIATION OF SUBSURFACE CONTAMINATION
Citation:
Douglas, D., A. Burns, C. Rino, AND J. Maresca, Jr. STUDY TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF USING A GROUND-PENETRATING RADAR FOR MORE EFFECTIVE REMEDIATION OF SUBSURFACE CONTAMINATION. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/R-92/089.
Description:
Remediation of hazardous material spills is often costly and entails cumbersome procedures. he traditional method is to drill core samples in the area where the contaminant is thought to be present and then analyze these samples in a laboratory. he denser the sampling grid, the more effective it is; unfortunately, it is also more expensive to implement and more damaging to the environment. onintrusive method for detecting subsurface contamination, therefore, would be highly desirable. oward this nd, the capability of round-penetrating radar (CPR) to identify natural subsurface features, detect man-ma e objects buried in the soil, and both detect and define the extent of contaminated soil or groundwater was assessed. he study concluded that the technology for the envisioned GPR already exists. n terms of hardware, it was found that a synthetic-pulse radar has the potential to operate ffectively in the three types of subsurface environments modeled in this study, environments representative of seven out of ten "common cases" found at remediation sites. n terms of signal processing, it was found that synthetic-aperture-radar (SAR) processing is preferable because better horizontal resolution can be achieved; the system can operate at lower frequencies and thus can achieve deeper penetration; and most importantly ambient noise is reduced. he study found that a high-performance radar, when combined with SAR processing, match-filtering, and one of several detection strategies, can detect even a thin layer of contaminant floating on the water table, and can distinguish the acoustic returns from contaminant-saturated soil as opposed to those from water-saturated soil. imple proof-of-principle experiments were recommended to validate the models developed in this study.