Electrical and electromagnetic methods are well suited for coastal aquifer studies because of the large contrast in resistivity between fresh water‐bearing and salt water‐bearing formations. Interpretation models for these aquifers typically contain four layers: a highly resistive unsaturated zone; a surficial fresh water aquifer of intermediate resistivity; an underlying conductive, salt water saturated aquifer; and resistive substratum. Additional layers may be added to allow for variations in lithology within the fresh water and salt water layers. Two methods are evaluated: direct current resistivity and time domain electromagnetic soundings. Use of each method alone produces nonunique solutions for resistivities and/or thicknesses of the different layers. We show that joint inversion of vertical electric and time domain electromagnetic soundings produces a more tightly constrained interpretation model at three test sites than is produced by inversion methods applied to each data set independently.

Near-surface inhomogeneities (NSIs) can lead to severe problems in the interpretation of apparent resistivity pseudosections because their effects significantly complicate the image aspect. In order to carry out a more efficient and reliable interpretation process, these problematic features should be removed from field data. We describe a filtering scheme using two-sided half-Schlumberger array data. The scheme was tested on synthetic data, generated from a simple 2D resistivity model contaminated by NSIs, and is shown to be suitable for eliminating such contaminations from apparent resistivity data. Furthermore, the original model without NSIs can be recovered satisfactorily from the inversion of filtered apparent resistivity data. The algorithm is also applied efficiently to a real data set collected at Nsimi, in southern Cameroon, along a 200-m shallow depth profile crossing a complex transitional zone. For this case, the filtering scheme provides accurate structural and behavioural interpretations of both the geometry of the major soil constituents and the groundwater partitioning.

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