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Microtremor Survey: A New Approach to Urban Safety and Environmental Assessment

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Disaster Medicine".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (12 April 2023) | Viewed by 3979

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Interests: surface wave theory; near-surface geophysics; microtremor survey method

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Guest Editor
College of Geo-exploration Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China
Interests: combined near-surface geophysical exploration imaging and geothermal reservoir monitoring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Interests: surface wave inversion and migration; machine learning; elastic full-wave imaging

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the rapid urbanization process that is currently ongoing in many countries, hazard prediction and environmental assessment in urban areas have been subjects of increasing concern. To ensure safety in urban development and to avoid potential geological disasters such as road collapses and landslides, it is essential to have a high-resolution geophysical method suitable for the complex urban condition that at the same time is non-invasive and cost-effective.

While conventional geophysical methods face many challenges in urban areas, from limited site accessibility to severe industrial interference, the microtremor survey method (MSM) has proven to be particularly suitable for urban areas. MSM extracts the dispersion characteristics of surface waves (Rayleigh waves) from microtremors to image the near-surface geological structures. In addition to its inherent high anti-interference ability as it utilizes a passive natural source, MSM is easy to use, flexible, and environmentally friendly. Today, MSM has found wide applications in geological investigation for urban safety, environmental assessment, and energy exploration (e.g., identifying the soil/bedrock interface, imaging undesirable near-surface geological anomalies, investigating geothermal resources).

MSM can also be used to dynamically monitor subsurface structures for hazard prediction, from recording underground industrial activities to detecting small precursory changes related to natural hazards such as volcanic eruptions, landslides, and earthquakes.

This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers presenting original and innovative contributions in the field of MSM, with a focus on urban safety and environmental assessment. In particular, we would like authors to discuss the surface wave theory and techniques of MSM, examine the safety and environmental impact of microtremors on high-rise buildings and urban subways, address new microtremor observations and numerical modeling, develop alternative processing and imaging workflow, and explore the technological novelties of MSM in monitoring the internal structure of the Earth, including interferometry for time-dependent imaging and tomography.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Theory and method of forward and inversion of surface waves in MSM;
  • New data processing and imaging techniques for MSM;
  • Case studies of MSM application in urban safety and environmental assessment;
  • 4D microtremor survey (time-lapse) monitoring;
  • Instrument and software development in MSM.

Prof. Dr. Peifen Xu
Prof. Dr. Jing Li
Dr. Zhaolun Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • microtremor survey
  • surface wave
  • urban safety and environmental assessment

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 21647 KiB  
Article
Distributed Acoustic Sensing Based on Microtremor Survey Method for Near-Surface Active Faults Exploration: A Case Study in Datong Basin, China
by Ao Song, Junjie Ren, Aichun Liu, Guangwei Zhang, Xiaoqiong Lei and Hao Zhang
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(4), 2915; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20042915 - 7 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1486
Abstract
Active fault detection has an important significance for seismic disaster prevention and mitigation in urban areas. The high-density station arrays have the potential to provide a microtremor survey solution for shallow seismic investigations. However, the resolution limitation of the nodal seismometer and small-scale [...] Read more.
Active fault detection has an important significance for seismic disaster prevention and mitigation in urban areas. The high-density station arrays have the potential to provide a microtremor survey solution for shallow seismic investigations. However, the resolution limitation of the nodal seismometer and small-scale lateral velocity being inhomogeneous hinder their application in near-surface active fault exploration. Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) has been developed rapidly in the past few years; it takes an optical fiber as the sensing medium and signal transmission medium, which can continuously detect vibration over long distances with high spatial resolution and low cost. This paper tried to address the issue of near-surface active fault exploration by using DAS. We selected a normal fault in the southern Datong basin, a graben basin in the Shanxi rift system in north China, to carry out the research. Microtremor surveys across the possible range of the active fault were conducted using DAS and nodal seismometers, so as to obtain a shallow shear wave velocity model. Meanwhile, we applied a Brillouin optical time domain reflectometer (BOTDR) and distributed temperature sensing (DTS) to monitor the real-time fluctuation of ground temperature and strain. Our results show that the resolution of the deep structures of the fault via the microtremor survey based on DAS is lower than that via the seismic reflection; whereas, their fault location is consistent, and the near-surface structure of the fault can be traced in the DAS results. In addition, both the BOTDR and DTS results indicate an apparent consistent change in ground temperature and strain across the fault determined by the DAS result, and the combination of surface monitoring and underground exploration will help to accurately avoid active faults and seismic potential assessment in urban areas. Full article
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18 pages, 11710 KiB  
Article
Frequency-Bessel Transform Based Microtremor Survey Method and Its Engineering Application
by Zhiwei You, Peifen Xu, Jing Qian, Lianpeng Cao, Yanan Du and Qiang Fu
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(20), 13484; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013484 - 18 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1762
Abstract
The development and utilization of urban underground space depend heavily on an understanding of urban geological conditions. The microtremor survey method is essential in urban geological surveys due to its quickness, convenience, non-destructiveness, and interference resistance. Since only the fundamental dispersion curves of [...] Read more.
The development and utilization of urban underground space depend heavily on an understanding of urban geological conditions. The microtremor survey method is essential in urban geological surveys due to its quickness, convenience, non-destructiveness, and interference resistance. Since only the fundamental dispersion curves of Rayleigh waves can be obtained by utilizing the spatial autocorrelation method, the inversion results have multiple solutions. To improve the accuracy of the microtremor survey, this study employed the frequency-Bessel transform to extract the fundamental and higher modes of dispersion information of Rayleigh waves from the microtremor data array and verified the effectiveness of this method by synthesizing theoretical microtremor signals. Additionally, taking into account the order identification challenges brought on by mode jumps or missing modes in the dispersion curve, this study processed a multi-mode dispersion curve based on the newly proposed inversion objective function coupled with a genetic algorithm to obtain a shallow surface S-wave velocity structure. Compared to the traditional inversion objective function, the new function presented in this study could address mode misidentification more effectively and improved the accuracy of inversion calculations. Finally, the applicability and dependability of the frequency-Bessel-transform-based microtremor survey method were evaluated in a practical engineering case. Full article
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