In recent years, non-invasive or micro-destructive geophysical technology has been widely used in soil and groundwater investigation and remediation of contaminated sites assessments, such technology can securely work in either small or large sampler areas, and collect data from the traditional one-dimensional data to two-dimensional or even three-dimensional data. In other words, geophysical technology helps provide more information to assist the data interpretation, and improves the overall effectiveness of soil and groundwater contamination surveys. However, the implementation of geophysical profile techniques needs to have relevant expertise and experience to ensure the data quality in order to obtain solid and trustworthy results. No matter it is used at fieldwork or data processing in the laboratories. By domestic and foreign literature collecting, case analyzing and examining the real field data, the present study attempts to build up a reference guideline covering the principles of survey operations, potential contamination identification and remediation assessment targeting the geophysical methods; for example, Electrical Reisitivity Tomography (ERT), Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and etc. which are especially useful when investigating the contamination of the soil and groundwater issues. Real field data examination contains two types of groundwater contamination one caused by landfills soil contamination and the other one caused by leakages of factories. Data are collected from a total of three sites, and the contaminated substances include heavy metals and organic solvents. The results prove that with a detailed and carful plan, solid implementation at the field work, professional information analysis, and with the traditional method of investigation according to the real conditions, the application of geophysical technology does enhance the integrity of the investigation of contamination issues, verification and remediation outcome evaluation.

Soil and Groundwater Pollution, Electrical Resistivity Tomography, Ground Penetrating Radar