# Comparison of Automated ERT stations (A-ERT) for continuous monitoring electrical resistivity in polar and mountain permafrost regions

Christian Hauck, Feras Abdulsamad, Mehriban Aliyeva, Mihai O Cimpoiasu, Mohammad Farzamian, Nathan Guigoz, Teddi Herring, Christin Hilbich, Martin Hoelzle, Filip Hrbacek, et al.

► To cite this version:

Christian Hauck, Feras Abdulsamad, Mehriban Aliyeva, Mihai O Cimpoiasu, Mohammad Farzamian, et al. Comparison of Automated ERT stations (A-ERT) for continuous monitoring electrical resistivity in polar and mountain permafrost regions. EGU General Assembly 2025, Apr 2025, Vienne, Austria. 10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15700 . hal-05385331

HAL Id: hal-05385331

https://hal.science/hal-05385331v1

Submitted on 27 Nov 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

# Comparison of Automated ERT stations (A-ERT) for continuous monitoring electrical resistivity in polar and mountain permafrost regions

**Christian Hauck**<fnref n="1" /> and the A-ERT comparison team*

Permafrost is warming globally as shown in many recent studies based on borehole temperature monitoring. However, data on changes in ground ice and water content in permafrost areas are scarce, which are both expected to change strongly close to the melting point when latent heat effects upon melting mask further temperature increase until all ice has melted. This is the reason why permafrost borehole temperature monitoring is in many cases complemented by geophysical surveying, such as Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), due to the strong dependence of electrical resistivity on liquid water content. ERT has been successfully applied to e.g. spatially map the active layer depth, quantify ice and water content and detect and delineate massive ice bodies within the permafrost since many years. In several cases survey lines were repeated or monitored over short time-periods to identify freeze-thaw processes or identify permafrost changes over longer time periods. However, only very rarely electrical resistivity is monitored operationally by an automated station.

In recent years, automated ERT (A-ERT) systems have been specifically developed to be deployed in harsh and remote terrain, and several systems have been installed in permafrost environments within different research projects. In this study, we collect and compare first results from several of these A-ERT stations regarding data quality over a full year monitoring period, specifics of current injection and contact resistances, energy consumption and resistivity evolution over freeze and thaw cycles. The continuously monitored permafrost resistivity data are compared for several A-ERT stations in polar and mountain regions, including the Antarctic Peninsula Region, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, Svalbard, Kyrgyzstan, Greenland and the European Alps. Finally, we will present processing approaches to relate the obtained resistivity changes to changes in water content and compare them to in-situ measured temperature and soil moisture data.

**A-ERT comparison team:** Abdulsamad, Feras, CNRS, Université Savoie Mont-Blanc, Laboratoire EDYTEM, France; Aliyeva, Mehriban, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany; Cimpoiasu, Mihai, Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, British Geological Survey, UK; Dafflon, Baptiste, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US; Farzamian, Mohammad, Instituto Nacional de

<footnote n="1">¹University of Fribourg, Department of Geosciences, Fribourg, Switzerland (christian.hauck@unifr.ch)</footnote>

<footnote>*A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract</footnote>
Investigação Agrária e Veterinária, 2780-157 Oeiras, Portugal and Centre for Geographical Studies, Associate Laboratory TERRA, IGOT, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal; Guigoz, Nathan, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Hauck, Christian, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Herring, Teddi, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada; Hilbich, Christin, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Hoelzle, Martin, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Hrbacek, Filip, Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic; Keuschnig, Markus, GEORESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, Puch bei Hallein, Austria; Knazkova, Michaela, Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic; Krautblatter, Michael, TUM School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, Germany; Kuras, Oliver, Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, British Geological Survey, UK; Lewkowicz, Antoni G., Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Ottawa, Canada; Magnin, Florence, CNRS, Université Savoie Mont-Blanc, Laboratoire EDYTEM, France; Mathys, Tamara, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Mollaret, Coline, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Morard, Sarah, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Offer, Maike, TUM School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, Germany and GEORESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, Puch bei Hallein, Austria; Overduin, Pier Paul, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany; Pellet, Cécile, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Tveit, Knut Ivar Lindland, University Centre on Svalbard, UNIS Longyearbyen, Norway; Uhlemann, Sebastian, Environmental Geophysics, University of Bremen, Germany; Vieira, Gonçalo, Centre of Geographical Studies, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning - IGOT, University of Lisbon, Portugal;