Application of shallow seismic methods to engineering, environmental and groundwater investigations

During the last two decades, various seismic methods have been developed and widely used to study the shallow subsurface for different purposes. This paper presents a number of examples illustrating the application of shallow seismic methods to engineering, environmental and groundwater-related investigations. The purpose of the presentation is to demonstrate what kind of information can be obtained and what kind of problems can be solved using shallow seismics. The applications considered include the following cases:
 - high-resolution reflection surveys for mapping recent faulting at construction sites and for studying aquifer structure in a region suffering from insufficient water supply;
- refraction surveys for detecting a shallow salt layer in sinkhole areas and for estimating the thickness of a Roman assault ramp at an archeological site;
- shear wave survey for site effect evaluation for seismic risk assessment at a bridge construction site in a seismically active area.
The considered examples show that the results of shallow seismic surveys can provide important information for the solution of various problems related to studying the upper part of the geological section.