Digital Twin Concept Utilizing Electrical Resistivity Tomography for Monitoring Seawater Intrusion

Abstract

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) has been seen as an appropriate instrument in several works to monitor and aid in the control of seawater intrusion (SWI) in coastal groundwater systems. This study seeks to discuss the synthesis of a digital twin that couples information between the physical space through ERT as a monitoring sensor and the digital space using SWI simulations to accurately model the behavior of SWI in the present and future settings. To showcase the concept, a Python-based simulation was presented that shows (a) the joint forward modeling-simulation scheme for calculating expected ERT apparent resistivity values from simulated SWI and (b) the calibration of the digital coastal aquifer system through genetic algorithm to accurately match the outputs of the SWI simulations with the ERT measurements.