Mapping of Sewer Lines Using GPR: A Case Study in Tunisia

Abstract

Many infrastructure enhancement projects require underground utility mapping before starting any excavation processes, especially in urban areas. In fact, mapping of an area provides a general overview of the infrastructure above and underground. This mapping can be done by Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), which is commonly used as a Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) technique that allows, among others, the detection and localization of buried utilities without any damage to the surface. This paper presents the results of mapping sewer lines in an urban region of the city of Tunis, Tunisia, using GPR. In this study a ground-coupled GPR system with a frequency of 400MHz was used to detect and locate the sewer lines in the study area. In order to reduce the amount of collected data over the large study area, some subareas were selected where GPR testing was conducted and data were analyzed. Then, sewer lines were interpolated over the whole area using the GPR results and the locations of manholes visible from the surface. It was shown that using this technique mapping of the pipes in the entire area can be achieved. All data presented in this study were collected by the Office of Topography and Cadastre (OTC) in Tunisia.

A Set of Ground Penetrating Radar Measures from Quarries

“…Among them, it is worth mentioning [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Previous work on GPR data can be found, among others, in [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

Towards a decentralized solution for sewer leakage detection – a review

“…The send and receive antennas penetrate electromagnetic microwave pulses into the ground following the 'look-down' approach and detect the returning wave from subsurface boundaries (Hao et al 2012;Liu & Kleiner 2013). Even though GPR is able to pinpoint the pipe network itself, GPR can potentially identify the leakages from buried pipes through underground voids created by leakage as well as penetration velocity anomalies due to high soil moisture content (Ghozzi et al 2018). According to a recent GPR survey in India covering 5 km each side of the Periyar river using a 200 MHz antenna (Figure 3(a)), Sonkamble & Chandra (2021) observed moist medium at 1 m depth from 10 m to 20 m distance.…”

Bibliometrics on Public Utilities Registration Research

“…A significant number of publications have also studied various methods of mapping underground utilities. The most researched method included ground-penetrating radar technology, which is popular for mapping underground utility networks, and a method that uses radar pulses to create images of the subsurface of the ground [56][57][58][59].…”