The old municipal and industrial waste landfills: possible contribution of geophysical survey techniques for thir assessment before reclamation

SUMMARY: In addition to the implicit environmental risk, the old abandoned waste landfills, both municipal and industrial, very often represent a serious problem since adequate information on their depth and lateral extension is very limited, when not lacking at all. Moreover the knowledge of waste consistence, presence and quality of saturating fluids, metals and so on, represents an information that cannot be neglected when designing the reclamation procedures. With the purpose of overcoming -at least partially- the above said lack of information, the possible role of geophysical methods such as the gravity, electrical and seismic ones, and their convenience, are proposed through some examples.