A new approach for time-lapse data weighting in electrical resistivity tomography

Applications of time-lapse inversion of electrical resistivity tomography allow monitoring variations in the subsurface that play a key role in a variety of contexts. The inversion of time-lapse data provides successive images of the subsurface properties showing the medium evolution. Image quality is highly dependent on the data weighting determined from the data error estimates. However, the quantification of errors in the inversion of time-lapse data has not yet been addressed. We have developed a methodology for the quantification of time-lapse data error based on the analysis of the discrepancy between normal and reciprocal readings acquired at different times. We applied the method to field monitoring data sets collected during the injection of heated water in a shallow aquifer. We tested different error models to indicate that the use of an appropriate time-lapse data error estimate yielded significant improvements in terms of imaging. An adapted inversion weighting for time-lapse data implies that the procedure does not allow an over-fitting of the data, so the presence of artifacts in the resulting images is greatly reduced. Our results determined that a proper estimate of time-lapse data error is mandatory for weighting optimally the inversion to obtain images that best reflect the evolution of medium properties over time.