This Special Issue of Near Surface Geophysics (NSG) is dedicated to advances and recent applications in the field of urban geophysics. The focus on urban geophysics is motivated by the increasing demand for information regarding the spatial variability of properties of the geological materials, the location of structures, the occurrence of groundwater, etc. to meet the needs of infrastructure planning and execution or other important issues in urbanised areas, such as natural hazards assessments. In this framework, a workshop on urban geophysics was held in Barcelona in September 2016,covering different topics related to the challenges and applications of the geophysical techniques in an urban environment. In response to the interest generated in this workshop, this Special Issue of NSG was conceived to bring together a set of papers with a common goal: application and adaptation of geophysical methods to provide subsurface information for urban studies. The required advances for adapting geophysical methods to an urban scenario face several challenges related to environmental (seismic or electromagnetic) noise or logistical restrictions (lacking open space, complexity of instrumentation setup). To tackle these issues, research efforts must be undertaken on both acquisition and processing aspects.
展开▼
