On the application of GPR for locating underground utilities in urban areas

With the rapid growth of complex network of different types of underground utility under large cities, the need of a noninvasive technique capable of swiftly and precisely detecting these utilities in such a noisy urban environment increases. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is considered one of the most promising techniques in this field. This study presents the experience of GPR data acquisition, processing, and interpretation in three cities located along the coast of the Red Sea. These cities are Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Sharm El-Sheikh and Qusier in Egypt. Data acquisition parameters varied in the three cities based on site conditions, target characteristics, and equipment availability. The processing flows were kept simple to avoid introducing artifacts to the collected data. The results show that despite the difference in site conditions and survey parameters among the three cities, with the exception of fiber optic cable, GPR technique is capable of detecting different kinds of underground utilities and precisely determine the extension, diameter, and depth of burial of these utilities.