IRF-k kriging of electrical resistivity data for estimating the extent of saltwater intrusion in a coastal aquifer system

We have evaluated the extent of saltwater intrusion from electrical resistivity distribution in a coastal aquifer system in the southeastern part of Busan, Korea. This aquifer system is divided into four layers according to the hydrogeologic characteristics and the horizontal extent of intruded saltwater is determined at each layer through the geostatistical interpretation of electrical resistivity data. In order to define the statistical structure of electrical resistivity data, variogram analysis is carried out to obtain best generalized covariance models. IRF-k (intrinsic random function of order k) kriging is performed with covariance models to produce the plane of spatial mean resistivities. The kriged estimates are evaluated by cross validation to show a good agreement with the true values and the statistics of cross validation represented low errors for the estimates. In the resistivity contour maps more than 5 m below the surface, we can see a dominant direction of saltwater intrusion beginning from the east side. The area of saltwater intrusion increases with depth. The northeast side has low resistivities less than 5 ohm-m due to the presence of saline water in the depth range of 20 m through 70 m. These results show that the application of geostatistical technique to electrical resistivity data is useful for assessing saltwater intrusion in a coastal aquifer system.