GPR Data

Central Arkansas Water (CAW) supplies fresh water to about a half million of Arkansas population; therefore, to avoid service interruptions and damage cost, its pipes and other facility locations must be depicted in a realistic view of the subsurface before excavation work is done. Accordingly, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys were conducted to locate the CAW pipelines as well as other potential utility lines beneath the old Broadway Bridge prior to the planned excavation work on the bridge site. The Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) selected three sites beneath the old Broadway Bridge to be surveyed to have their subsurface precisely and interactively mapped in 3D. In this article, a new approach is presented for achieving the main objectives through integrating GPR directly with ArcGIS Pro. The results indicated that integrating GPR with ArcGIS Pro can be a powerful tool to detect, map and view utility lines in a 3D space with the needed precision. GPR technique was able to locate the CAW pipeline and other subsurface utility lines at varying depths down to 2 m at two sites. Whereas the third site was more challenging to the GPR system due to the wet subsurface and high noise-to-signal ratio. However, a concrete pipe, heavy-duty cables as well as another anomaly, which is presumably related to the CAW pipeline, were detected at the third site. It is contended that the findings of this study could help protect utility infrastructure and reduce the cost of maintenance.