A comparison of DCIP inversion software

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is a commonly used geophysical method, which can conveniently be combined with measuring time-domain induced polarization. The combined measurement can be termed DCIP, and can be employed in a wide range of situations such as pre-investigations for construction, or contaminant monitoring to name a few. An integral part of a DCIP survey is the software used for processing and interpretation. There exists many such software packages. We compare the ubiquitous, commercial software, Res2DInv and two other common alternatives; the semi-academic AarhusInv and the academic, open source, BERT/GIMLi. The comparison is done by simulating measurements of resistivity and IP with a multiple gradient protocol over a model that represents a waste pond setting. The results show that there are quite a few similarities between the different softwares, but also some notable differences that one should be aware of during interpretation. This work is the first step towards an exhaustive comparison.