The use of non-invasive or minimally invasive investigations based on physical measurements is rapidly increasing its role in many areas of applications that involve the subsurface as well as the built environment. The scope ranges from local-scale high-resolution investigations for agricultural and engineering applications, to intermediate scale often needed in applied geology/hydrogeology investigations such as on landslides, to large scale possibly 3D investigations for the identification of georesources, ranging from traditional oil, gas and solid mineral resources to renewable geothermal resources.

The range of applicable methods cover the entire spectrum of geophysical techniques: electrical, electromagnetic, magnetic, gravimetric, seismic methods. In addition, more and more often time-lapse monitoring is added to the suite of applicable techniques, in turn ranging from local scale electrical time-lapse monitoring of hydrological processes to large scale 4D seismic monitoring of petroleum reservoirs, gas storage facilities and geothermal systems.

Professors coordinating and developing projects related to this research pathway: Giorgio Cassiani, Giulio Di Toro, Paolo Fabbri, Antonio Galgaro, Leonardo Piccinini, Raffaele Sassi, Paolo Scotton