A Review of the Advantages and Limitations of Geophysical Investigations in Landslide Studies
Table 2
This table summarizes the analysed scientific papers from the last twelve years (2007-2018) focused on “soil landslide”. The landslide typology and materials are defined as in the papers themselves. Moreover, where possible, we added the landslide classification according to [4]. Papers marked with # already adopted this classification. Papers marked with (°) and (°°) focus on the Super Sauze and La Vallette landslides, respectively. Drawbacks 1 to 5 are the limitations of the geophysical techniques applied to landslide characterizations pointed out by [11]. They are, respectively, as follows: Drawback 1: geophysicists have to make an effort in the presentation of their results; Drawback 2: the resolution and the penetration depth of each method are not systematically discussed in an understandable way; Drawback 3: the geological interpretation of geophysical data should be more clearly and critically explained; Drawback 4: the challenge for geophysicists is to convince geologists and engineers that 3D and 4D geophysical imaging techniques can be valuable tools for investigating and monitoring landslides; and Drawback 5: efforts should also be made towards obtaining quantitative information from geophysics in terms of geotechnical parameters and hydrological properties. +, -, and n.d. mean, respectively, that many/some, insufficient, and non-discussed efforts were made to overcome the limitations (see Table 4), while + means that the interpretation is linked to a numerical model or landslide feature identification. VES: vertical electrical sounding, ERT: electrical resistivity tomography, IP/SIP: induced polarization/spectral induced polarization, SP: self-potential, SPT: self-potential tomography, F/TDEM: frequency/time domain electro magnetism, VLF-EM: very low-frequency electro magnetism, EM: electro magnetism, RMT: radio magnetotelluric, AE: acoustic emission, SN: seismic noise, SR: seismic refraction, SRe: seismic reflection, SW: surface waves, DH: downhole, CH: crosshole, GPR: ground penetrating radar, MG: micro gravity, DTM: digital terrain model, SAR: synthetic aperture radar, GB-InSAR: ground based interferometric SAR, GPS: global position system, TS: total station, TLS: terrestrial laser scanners, CPT: cone penetration test, TDR: time domain reflectometry.