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Fuzzy Constrained Lp-Norm Inversion of Direct Current Resistivity Data

Article  in  Geophysics · October 2017

DOI: 10.1190/geo2017-0040.1

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GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 83, NO. 1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2018); P. 1–14, 10 FIGS., 1 TABLE.
10.1190/GEO2017-0040.1
Fuzzy constrained Lp-norm inversion of direct current resistivity data
Anand Singh1, Shashi Prakash Sharma1, İrfan Akca2, and Vikas Chand Baranwal3
ABSTRACT
We evaluate the use of a fuzzy c-means clustering pro-
cedure to improve an inverted 2D resistivity model within
the iterative error minimization procedure. The algorithm
is coded in MATLAB language for the Lp-norm inversion
of 2D direct current resistivity data and is referred to as fuzzy
constrained inversion (FCI). Two additional input parame-
ters are required to be provided by the interpreter: (1) the
number of geologic units in the model (i.e., the number of
clusters) and (2) the mean resistivity values of each geologic
unit (i.e., cluster center values of the geologic units). The
efficacy of our approach is evaluated by tests carried on the
synthetic and field electrical resistivity tomography (ERT)
data. Inversion results from the FCI algorithm are presented
for conventional L1- and L2-norm minimization techniques.
FCI indicates improvement over conventional inversion ap-
proaches in differentiating the geologic units if a proper
number of the geologic units is provided to the algorithm.
Inappropriate clustering information will affect the resulting
resistivity models, particularly conductive geologic units
existing in the model. We also determine that FCI is only
effective when the observed ERT data can recognize the par-
ticular geologic units.
INTRODUCTION
Direct current (DC) resistivity imaging or electrical resistivity
tomography (ERT) is an effective tool to obtain the subsurface re-
sistivity image with high resolution and has been used in various
applications, e.g., delineation of groundwater/aquifers (Johnson
et al., 2010); archaeological exploration (Akca, 2016); medical im-
aging (Holder, 2004); environmental, geotechnical, and engineering
Manuscript received by the Editor 18 January 2017; revised manuscript received 23 July 2017; published ahead of production 25 October 2017.
1
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Kharagpur, India. E-mail: anand@gg.iitkgp.ernet.in; spsharma@gg.
iitkgp.ernet.in.
2
Ankara University, Department of Geophysical Engineering, Ankara, Turkey. E-mail: irfan.akca@eng.ankara.edu.tr.
3
Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), Trondheim, Norway. E-mail: vikas.baranwal@ngu.no.
© 2018 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.
1
surveys (Sudha et al., 2009; Rucker et al., 2010; Sharma et al.,
2010; Solberg et al., 2016); marine research (Loke and Lane,
2004; Rucker et al., 2011); and mineral/hydrocarbon exploration
(White et al., 2001; Bauman, 2005; Legault et al., 2008; Mohanty
et al., 2011; Mandal et al., 2015; Adhikari et al., 2016; Biswas and
Sharma, 2016). It provides information about subsurface conduc-
tors by injecting the electric current into the earth and measuring
the injected current and potential differences at various locations
using various electrode configurations. The electrodes could be lo-
cated at the surface and/or in boreholes. Inverse modeling provides
a mathematical framework to obtain a reliable resistivity model of
the subsurface, responsible for the measured data in the field. Be-
cause the number of measured ERT data is less than the number of
resistivity blocks, the inverse problem is intrinsically nonunique and
ill posed (Tarantola, 2005). Thus, there exist numerous subsurface
resistivity models of which response can fit the measured resistivity
data sets equally well.
Over the past 30 years, there have been lots of developments in
DC resistivity interpretation techniques. The list is huge, and only
some of them are mentioned here, e.g., 1D interpretation (Sharma,
2012), 2D interpretation (Loke and Barker, 1996; Boonchaisuk
et al., 2008; Rücker and Günther, 2011), and 3D interpretation
(Jackson et al., 2001; Günther et al., 2006; Pidlisecky et al., 2007).
The modeling techniques mentioned above have their merit and
demerits regarding inversion approach, computation time, storage
space, customization, and visualization in various dimensions. How-
ever, there are two major problems associated with inversion of
ERT data sets: (1) Most of the inversion algorithms are based on the
L2-norm minimization and produce smooth resistivity images, and
(2) recovered resistivity values are lower or higher than the actual
resistivity in the subsurface as a consequence of the inversion algo-
rithms. Because of these two major problems, boundaries of the geo-
logic units are not clearly seen in such approaches because of low
contrasts in the smoothed resistivity models. This causes a difficulty
in the geologic interpretation of smooth resistivity images in which a
sharp boundary is expected. Yi et al. (2003) use an active constraint
2 Singh et al.
balancing technique to overcome extreme smoothing in the models.
There are other inversion approaches based on L1-norm minimiza-
tion to generate blocky structures in the subsurface (Farquharson and
Oldenburg, 1998; Loke et al., 2003). Akca and Başokur (2010) de-
velop a technique to depict structure-based resistivity sections using
hybrid genetic algorithms. However, they did not show their result
when abrupt lateral variations in lithology could be present. Rücker
(2011) incorporates a priori information of structural constraints from
seismic and borehole data. Zhou et al. (2014) dug out the structural
orientation from the geologic sections and enforce this structural ori-
entation to the inversion through a model covariance matrix.
In the DC resistivity method, the most common approach to iden-
tify the boundary between geologic units is based on gradient and
Laplacian methods (Sass, 2007; Hsu et al., 2010; Chambers et al.,
2012).The gradient-based approach detects the boundaries of a con-
ductive/resistive structure by finding the maximum of the first deriv-
atives of the resistivity model, whereas the Laplacian searches for
the curvature of the resistivity model. Wilkinson et al. (2012) show
that this approach might not be efficient due to the gradational
nature of smoothness constraints in the DC resistivity inversion and
also due to low resolution at depth because of the larger interspatial
distances of the electrodes. Often, some a priori geologic informa-
tion is known to us. In some of the geologic scenarios, different
geologic units have a distinct range of resistivity values. Therefore,
such geologic structures can be classified by their resistivity values
so that statistically similar resistivity values are grouped in one unit
or cluster (Doetsch et al., 2010; Ward et al., 2014; Ishola et al.,
2015). Doetsch et al. (2010) and Ward et al. (2014) use the cluster-
ing technique in postinversion processing to improve the resistivity
images significantly. However, Infante et al. (2010) combine geo-
spectral and geophysical signatures in the joint inversion of electri-
cal and seismic data to get a better separation between two different
geologic units. Ishola et al. (2015) combine multiple arrays in their
ERT problem using a k-means clustering technique. In the present
study, we develop an inversion algorithm for the 2D DC resistivity
inverse problem using the Lp-norm. We use the fuzzy c-means
(FCM) clustering technique directly in the inversion framework to
improve the interpretation of the subsurface resistivity structures.
We also show the effect of the clustering in the inversion result.
The developed methodology is tested with three synthetic data sets
and a field data set. The field data were collected from a sensitive
clay site at Esp, Trondheim, Norway. The objective of the survey
was to identify sensitive clay zones.
METHODOLOGY
2D forward modeling and sensitivity calculation
Forward modeling is an essential tool for any inversion algo-
rithm. In 2D DC resistivity forward modeling, the following elliptic
partial differential equation of Poisson’s type (Günther, 2004) is
solved to calculate the potential distribution Vðx; y; zÞ over a 2D
conductivity structure ðσÞ due to a current source ðIÞ:
−∇½σðx; zÞ∇Vðx; y; zÞ ¼ Iðx; y; zÞ: (1)
There are many numerical approaches to solve equation 1, e.g., the
finite-difference method (Mufti, 1976; Dey and Morrison, 1979),
finite-element method (Coggon, 1971; Rijo, 1977; Queralt et al.,
1991; Xu et al., 2000), and finite-volume method (Pidlisecky and
Knight, 2008). In the present work, we use the finite-element 1
method to solve equation 1 to calculate the potential difference, and
then the apparent resistivity is calculated using the general approach
of Marescot et al. (2006). Later, the apparent resistivity values
are transformed into pseudodepth sections using the approach by
Edwards (1977). The solution of equation 1 can be written in dis-
crete form as
dpre ¼ FðmÞ; (2)
where F is the forward-modeling operator, dpre is the computed or
predicted ERT data, and m ¼ ½log σ 1 ; log σ 2 ; : : : ; log σ M T is the
model parameter vector. The term σ k is the conductivity of the kth
block/cell and M is the total number of blocks in the model. In the
present study, model discretization and forward modeling are per-
formed by following the details given by Akca (2016). The Jacobian
matrix S is formulated according to Tripp et al. (1984), Sasaki
(1994), and Spitzer (1998).
Fuzzy clustering
The clustering procedure is an arrangement of data into groups of
similar objects. Each cluster comprises items that are similar to each
other and dissimilar to objects of the other groups. There are nu-
merous clustering techniques available in the literature (Macqueen,
1967; Bezdek, 1981). Fuzzy c-means is a strategy for clustering that
permits one piece of data to belong to two or more groups. It has been
broadly used in geosciences, e.g., in remote sensing image segmen-
tation (Fan et al., 2009; Ghaffarian and Ghaffarian, 2014; Sarkar et al.,
2016), geochemistry (Fatehi and Asadi, 2017), soil-landscape mod-
eling and soil mapping (Bragato, 2004; Goktepe et al., 2005; Wang
et al., 2012), determination of aquifer parameters and groundwater
study (Ayvaz, 2007; Ayvaz et al., 2007; Güler et al., 2012), subsur-
face zonation and petrophysical parameter estimation (Paasche et al.,
2006, 2010; Sun and Li, 2015), and cooperative inversion (Paasche
and Tronicke, 2007; Nair and Kandpal, 2010).
The FCM clustering procedure assigns blocks to clusters using
fuzzy memberships. Let m ¼ ½m1 ; m2 ; : : : ; mM T denote the M
numbers of resistivity blocks to be partitioned into c numbers of
geologic units (i.e., the number of cluster centers). To realize this,
we can iteratively minimize the following objective function (Bez-
dek, 1981):
M X
X c
ϕc ¼ μqik kmk − ui k22 ; (3)
k¼1 i¼1
where μik is the respective cluster membership of the kth resistivity
block with respect to the ith cluster. The function ui is the resistivity
value of the ith cluster (i.e., mean resistivity value of the ith geologic
unit). Weighting exponent q and kk22 are the fuzzification parameter
and the squared L2-norm, respectively. Wade et al. (2014) note that 2
FCM clustering will not provide unique results upon repeated appli-
cation and introduce a method called guided FCM clustering. They
compute predefined cluster centers with the help of the observed DC
data sets using kernel density estimation (Botev et al., 2010). There-
fore, we introduce a priori cluster centers vi into our FCM clustering
formulation (Sun and Li, 2015):
 Fuzzy constrained inversion 3

M X
X c X
c minϕtotal ¼ ϕd þ λ1 ϕm ; ϕd ≤ ϕ ; (6)
ϕc ¼ μqik kmk − ui k22 þ wci kui − vi k22 ; (4) m
k¼1 i¼1 i¼1
where ϕ is the target misfit. The regularization term λ1 controls the
where wci is the weight corresponding to a priori cluster center vi. trade-off between model regularization and data misfit function. A
Writing equation 4 in matrix form results in proper value of the regularization parameter is derived from expe-
rience or trial-and-error method. Constable et al. (1987) and Meju
X
c X
c (1992) use a line search method, whereas Loke and Barker (1996)
ϕc ¼ μqi km − ui k22 þ wci kui − vi k22 : (5) start with a higher value and further decrease it at subsequent itera-
i¼1 i¼1 tions. Yi et al. (2003) use a spatially variable regularization param-
eter, calculated it using the spread function and model parameter
We perform an iterative minimization of the objective function in
resolution matrix. There are other methods as well to choose an ap-
equation 5 to obtain the optimum value of the cluster centers and
propriate value of λ1 ; e.g., the L-curve method, discrepancy method,
their respective membership values (μ). The cluster centers are up-
and generalized cross-validation method (Hansen, 1998; Günther 3
dated iteratively based on the new membership values (μ).This pro-
et al., 2006). Farquharson and Oldenburg (2004) compare different
cedure is continued until termination criteria (εc ) are satisfied. The
selection criteria and suggest a cooling-type method of decreasing the
weighting exponent q is assigned with a value of two in this study.
Minimization of the FCM objective function in an iterative manner is regularization parameter. In this work, starting value of the regulari-
summarized below from a well-known algorithm of Bezdek (1981): zation parameter λs1 is calculated as in Akca (2016):

λs1 ¼ std½logðdobs Þ; (7)

where std stands for the standard deviation and dobs represents the
observed apparent resistivity data. Furthermore, the value of the regu-
Repeat for l ¼ 1; 2; : : :
larization parameter is reduced to half in successive iterations until it
Step 1: Calculate the centers: reaches a minimum of 0.01. Data misfit is a measure of disagreement
PM ðl−1Þ q
between the observed apparent resistivity data dobs and predicted
ðlÞ k¼1 ðμik Þ mj þ wci vi apparent resistivity data dpre . Predicted data are the response of a
ui ¼ PM ðl−1Þ q
; 1 < i < c:
k¼1 ðμik Þ þ wci model m, derived through forward modeling as shown in equations 1
and 2. Mathematical representation of the data misfit function can be
given as
Step 2: Compute the distance matrices:
ϕd ¼ kWd ðFðmÞ − dobs Þkpp ; (8)
ðlÞ ðlÞ
D2ik ¼ ðmk − ui ÞT ðmk − ui Þ; 1 ≤ i ≤ c; 1≤k≤M
where Wd ¼ diagfς12 ; ς12 ; : : : ; ς12 g and ςi is the standard deviation of
1 2 N

the ith observation. If standard deviation of observed data is not

Step3: Update the partition matrix: known, then weights can be computed by following Akca (2016) as
 
for 1 ≤ k ≤ M; 1 1 1
Wd ¼ diag p ffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi ; p ffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi ; : : : ; p ffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi : (9)
for 1 ≤ i ≤ c;
4
dobs
1
4
dobs
2
4
dobs
N

1
μik ¼ P   2 The model regularization parameter is calculated according to Li and
c Dik q−1 Oldenburg (1996) as
i¼1 Djk

X
4
Until kμðlÞ − μðl−1Þ k < εc . ϕm ¼ kα1 Wm ref p
s ðm − m Þkp þ kαi Wm p
i mkp ; (10)
i¼2

Start with resistivity model m; choose the number of clusters where mref is the reference model (i.e., a priori resistivity model) and
1 < c < M; termination tolerance εc (usually 10−5 ). Initialize the the matrix Wm s is the diagonal matrix containing model parameter
partition matrix randomly such that μð0Þ ∈ Mfk (i.e., it belongs weights. Weighting matrices Wm i ði ¼ 2; 3; 4Þ are first-order x-direc-
to the fuzzy partitioning space). tion gradient, z-direction gradient, and Laplace’s differential compo-
nent, respectively (Li and Oldenburg, 1996; Pidlisecky et al., 2007)
Inversion approach 8∂
>
< ∂x ; i¼2
∂
The 2D DC resistivity inverse problem is a highly underdeter-
Wi ¼
m ; i ¼ 3:
mined problem; therefore, an additional term Tikhonov parametric >
∂z  (11)
: 1 ∂22 þ ∂2
; i¼4
functional or model regularization parameter, ϕm ðmÞ (Tikhonov 4 ∂x ∂z2
and Arsenin, 1977) is used together with the data misfit function
ϕd ðmÞ. These two terms are weighted by a regularization term Constants αi ði ¼ 2; 3; 4Þ are the respective weights. The first term of 4
λ1 and yield the objective function: equation 10 will give us a measure of the closeness of the current
4 Singh et al.

model to a reference model (Li and Oldenburg, 1998). In the present the previous section. Additional inputs to this step are (1) the num-
study, we use a modified version of the Lp-norm (Ekblom, 1987; also ber of cluster centers and (2) values of the cluster centers (the mean
see Appendix A for different types of norms) as resistivity value of each geologic unit). Fuzzy weighting terms wci
p
(equation 5) are based on our confidence level to find the value of a
lp ðeÞ ¼ ðe2 þ ε2 Þ 2 : (12) priori cluster centers vi . If the a priori information of any particular
cluster center is not known to us, then the weighting term is as-
The minimization of the objective function shown in equation 6 at the signed as zero. We minimize two objective functions (equations 5
(k þ 1)th iteration using the Ekblom (1987) norm in an iteratively and 6) together.
reweighted least-squares (IRLS) strategy requires the solution for After obtaining the resistivity model mjþ1 at the (j þ 1)th iter-
the model update(see Appendix A) as ation, we compute the ith cluster centers ujþ1 i and its corresponding
2 3−1 membership values μijþ1 separately as explained in the fuzzy-
ðSk ÞT ðWd ÞT Rd Wd Sk clustering section. Furthermore, the resistivity model mjþ1 is par-
6  7
Δmkþ1 ¼ 4 α1 ðWm
s Þ R s Ws
T m
5 titioned into c clusters using cluster centers and the maximum
þλ1 P4 membership value of the FCM to compute the model parameters
þ i¼2 αi ðWi Þ Ri Wi
m T m
2 k T d T 3 (modified resistivity model) for the (j þ 1)th iteration as
ðS Þ ðW Þ Rd Wd ðdobs − dk Þ
6  ref  7; X
c
×4 α1 ðWm s Þ Rs Ws ðm − m Þ
T m k
5 (13) mjþ1 ¼ ujþ1 jþ1
−λ1 P4 k i μik : (16)
þ i¼2 αi ðWi Þ Ri Wi m
m T m k i¼1

where Sk is the Jacobian matrix at the kth iteration and Δmkþ1 is the This method is known as hard classification or defuzzification in the
model update at the (k þ 1)th iteration. Equation 13 has additional literature (Miyamoto et al., 2008). By performing the inversion in
matrices Rd ; Rs , and Ri compared with the general system of equa- this way, three parameters, namely, resistivity model m, cluster cen-
tion for L2-norm-based minimization. It is important to highlight that ters u, and membership values μ, are iteratively optimized together.
matrices Rd ; Rs , and Ri are also dependent on mk and Δmkþ1 and Therefore, the goal of the presented FCI is to satisfy the additional a
are updated at each iteration (see equations B-12 and B-14). If we priori information of geologic units together with observed apparent
consider the L2-norm (i.e., p ¼ 2 and ε ¼ 10−6 ), these diagonal ma- resistivity data sets in the inversion. Hence, FCI resistivity images
trices (Rd ; Rs , and Ri ) will become identity matrices, and equation 13 will be more reliable than the general resistivity images obtained
will be reduced to using only observed apparent resistivity data sets. A flowchart of
2 3−1 FCI is shown below:
ðSk ÞT ðWd ÞT Wd Sk
6  7
Δmkþ1 ¼ 4 α1 ðWm
s Þ Ws
T m
5
þλ1 P4
þ i¼2 αi ðWi Þ Wi
m T m
2 k T d T d obs 3
ðS Þ ðW Þ W ðd − dk Þ Flowchart of FCI
6  ref  7:
×4 α1 ðWm s Þ Ws ðm − m Þ
T m k
5 (14) 1) Choose the size of measure (i.e., norm p and ε) and inversion
−λ1 P4 parameters α.
þ i¼2 αi ðWi Þ Wi m
m T m k
2) Choose a starting model m0 , number of lithologic units c, cluster
centers vi , and weights wi .
Equation 14 is used to compute the model update at the first iteration
because the diagonal matrices Rd ; Rs , and Ri cannot be computed 3) Set j ¼ 0. Compute dpre0 ¼ Fðm0 Þ using equation 2,
Δd0 ¼ dobs − dpre0 , and compute the sensitivity matrix S .
0
due to the unavailability of model update Δm. Once Δm is obtained
and the matrices Rd ; Rs , and Ri can be computed, Δm is obtained by 4) while kW d ðF½mj  − dobs Þk2 ≥ tolð≃ 1%Þ and j < jmax do
solving equation 13 for the rest of the iterations. Logarithmic values 4) If j ¼¼ 0,
of resistivity are used as model parameters; therefore, the model will Compute model perturbation Δmj using equation 14
be updated as (Baranwal et al., 2011) 5) else j >¼ 1,
Compute the diagonal matrices Rd ; Rs , and Ri .
mkþ1 ¼ mk expðΔmkþ1 Þ: (15)
Compute model perturbation Δmjþ1 using equation 13.
It is important to highlight that the data error in observed ERT data is 6) Update model parameter vector mjþ1 ¼ mj expðΔmjþ1 Þ.
generally approximated by a Gaussian distribution; however, the Rd 7) Compute the sensitivity matrix Sjþ1 and predicted data
matrix (equation B-12) will provide a non-Gaussian distribution. dpre
jþ1 ¼ Fðmjþ1 Þ.
Therefore, Rd is used as an identity matrix throughout the study. 8) Update the cluster centers uijþ1 at ðj þ 1Þth iteration.
ðjþ1Þ
9) Update the partition matrix μik at the ðj þ 1Þth iteration.
Fuzzy constrained inversion 10) Compute new model parameters using equation 16
The basic idea of the fuzzy constrained inversion (FCI) is to im- mjþ1 ¼ ujþ1 μjþ1 .
prove the 2D resistivity model within the iterative minimization dur- 11) j ¼ j þ 1.
ing the inversion. For this purpose, we have used an additional step 12) end.
of optimizing the cluster centers during the inversion as explained in
 Fuzzy constrained inversion 5

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To demonstrate the efficacy of FCI, synthetic apparent resistivity
data are generated for different types of electrode configurations for
three different 2D models. L1- and L2-norm-based resistivity inver-
sions of the synthetic data are performed using the general inversion
approach described in the “Inversion approach” section. Later, the
same data are inverted using our FCI. All the parameters used in this
study are summarized in Table 1.
Synthetic model 1
The first synthetic model is a single 10 Ωm block in a 100 Ωm
background as shown in Figure 1a. The synthetic apparent resistiv-
ity response of the first test model was calculated for the Wenner
array (details are given in Table 1). The model region was discre-
tized in 1020 resistivity blocks (60 in the x-direction and 17 in the
z-direction). Gaussian noise of 5% was added to the synthetic model
as shown in Figure 1b to generate noisy synthetic data. We started
the inversion with a homogeneous resistivity model, i.e., the aver-
age of the noisy synthetic data. The data were first inverted using an
L2-norm by assigning p ¼ 2 and ε ¼ 1.0 × 10−6 , and the test re-
sults are shown in Figure 1c. We inverted the same data using an
L1-norm (p ¼ 1 and ε ¼ 1.0 × 10−6 ), and the results are shown in
Figure 1d. All the inversion parameters were kept exactly the same
except the value of p for L1- and L2-norm inversions. Finally, we
inverted the same synthetic data with our FCI strategy as detailed in
the FCI section. The inversion was performed by setting c ¼ 2,
v1 ¼ logð100Þ Ωm, v2 ¼ logð10Þ Ωm, and ε ¼ 1.0 × 10−6 for
L2-norm (p ¼ 2) and L1-norm (p ¼ 1). The results of L2- and
L1-norm minimization with FCI are shown in Figure 1e and 1f,
respectively. We show histogram plots of the cell resistivities for
all the models to their right side to highlight the ranges of the re-
sistivities in the models. In the present test, fuzzy weights were set
to 1 and 15 (Table 1) to recover the synthetic model. It is also seen
that the boundaries of the geologic units are better recovered by FCI
compared with general inversion without clustering. The conver-
gence pattern of the inversion algorithms (Figure 2) shows that all
the inversions converge to almost the same rms error.
Synthetic model 2
We performed another synthetic model inversion using a two-
block model with a sharp resistivity contrast (Boonchaisuk et al.,
2008) as shown in Figure 3a. Two blocks having resistivity of 100
and 1 Ωm were located next to each other in a homogeneous half-
space of 10 Ωm resistivity. The response of the model was calcu-
lated for the dipole-dipole array configuration. Gaussian noise of
5% was added to the synthetic data set (Figure 3b). The whole
model region was discretized into 28 × 19 blocks. The model con-
sists of three geologic units with mean resistivity values of 1, 10,
and 100 Ωm (the histogram plot in Figure 3a). If resistivities of geo-
logic units are known from priori measurements of rock samples or
from other geophysical surveys (e.g., boreholes), then we can recon-
struct the resistivity model more accurately using the presented FCI.
We set c as 3 and vk as [1, 10, and 100] Ωm for k ¼ 1 − 3. The
resistivity model reconstructed from general inversion without fuzzy
clustering constraints are shown in Figure 3c and 3d for L2- and
L1-norms, respectively. Figure 3e and 3f shows the recovered resis-
tivity models by FCI using L2- and L1-norms, respectively. It is ob-
vious that the interfaces of the blocks are much clearer in Figure 3e
and 3f obtained by FCIs than in Figure 3c and 3d by general inver-
sion. Both of the above synthetic examples show the efficacy of the
presented FCI. We would like to highlight that the FCI inversion with
the L1-norm (Figures 1f and 3f) in comparison with the FCI inversion
with the L2-norm (Figures 1e and 3e) recovers boundaries better to
resemble the true model, specifically in the vertical direction. We note
that the resistivity ranges in the L2-norm FCI model are fewer than in

Table 1. Summary of all the parameters (general, inversion, and clustering) used in the present study.

Parameters Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Field data

General parameters Forward solver Finite-element method

Electrode array Wenner Dipole-dipole Wenner Gradient
Unit spacing (m) 10 5 1 5
No. of observed data 345 669 408 2155
Number of blocks 60 × 17 58 × 19 50 × 14 120 × 22
Inversion parameters α1 10−6 10−6
α2 0.02 0.002
α3 0.02 0.002
α4 0.02 0.002
Number of iteration 10 10
λ1 (initial value) Using equation 7 Using equation 7
λ1 (minimum value) 0.01 0.01
λ1 (damping factor) 0.55 0.55
Clustering parameters Number of cluster 2 3 2 4
Cluster centers ½2; 1T ½0; 2; 1T ½2; 1T ½0.88; 1.64; 2.26; 3T
wci ½1; 15T ½15; 5; 1T ½20; 20T ½20; 15; 10; 0T
6 Singh et al.

the L1-norm FCI model. This is the reason that L1-norm FCI in com- ities well, but L1-norm FCI (Figure 4e) recovers appropriate boun-
parison with L2-norm FCI took fewer numbers of iterations in recov- daries than L2-norm FCI (Figure 4d).
ering the true model (Figure 2). In the next examples (Figure 4f and 4g), we assumed three
(c ¼ 3) and four (c ¼ 4) model units instead of actual two model
Synthetic model 3 units to demonstrate the effect of choosing the wrong number of
clusters and cluster centers for the same synthetic model (Figure 4a).
The third synthetic model (Figure 4a) was designed to demon- Histogram plots of the recovered resistivities in right side images of
strate the effect of choosing an incorrect number of clusters in the Figure 4f and 4g show three and four geologic units, respectively, in
model than the actual number of possible geologic units present in the recovered models. Only two model units are present in the true
the model. The fuzzy clustering constrained inversion was applied models, and the rest are artifacts generated by the wrong assumption
on synthetic responses of resistivity model 3 representing a vertical of the extra geologic units in the fuzzy clustering. This example
fault-like model (the boundary of the true model is shown by black demonstrates that it is quite important to choose the correct number
lines in Figure 4a). The resistivities of the blocks are 100 and
10 Ωm. The response of the model was calculated for a Wenner
array of 51 electrodes with 1 m electrode spacing. Gaussian noise
of 5% was added to synthetic apparent resistivity data to approxi-
mate it with noisy field measurements. The model region was dis-
cretized in 700 cells (50 × 14). Models shown in Figure 4b and 4c
were obtained by L2- and L1-norms general inversions, respec-
tively. The black lines in each figure show the boundary between
two contrasting units in the true model. We inverted the synthetic
apparent resistivity data with 5% Gaussian noise using FCI and as-
suming the actual number of model units (i.e., c ¼ 2) and vi as
[log (100) and log (10)] Ωm for k ¼ 1 − 2. These results of FCI
with L2- and L1-norms as shown in Figure 4d and 4e, respectively, Figure 2. Convergence pattern of data misfit ϕd during the itera-
depict that both the models recovered the boundaries and resistiv- tions for different inversions performed for synthetic model 1.

Figure 1. Inversion results for the single block model. (a) Synthetic model simulating a single dike type body and (b) the perturbed model with
5% Gaussian variation of the cell resistivities. Models obtained after inversion of the synthetic data are shown in (c) using L2-norm, (d) using
L1-norm, (e) using FCI with L2-norm, and (f) using FCI with L1-norm. The second and fourth columns represent histogram plots of the
resistivity models to their left.
 Fuzzy constrained inversion 7

Figure 3. Inversion results for two blocks models with high resistivity contrasts. (a) True resistivities of the model, and (b) same model with 5%
Gaussian noise. Models obtained after inversion of the synthetic data are shown in (c) using L2-norm, (d) using L1-norm, (e) using FCI with L2-
norm, and (f) using FCI with L1-norm. The second and fourth columns represent histogram plots of corresponding resistivity models to their left.

Figure 4. Inversion results for a fault model with high resistivity contrasts and the effect of the inappropriate number of clustering information
on FCI. Synthetic model and histogram plot of resistivities are shown in (a). Models obtained after inversion of the synthetic data are shown in
(b) using L2-norm, (c) using L1-norm, (d) using FCI with L2-norm and (e) using FCI with L1-norm. Inverted resistivity models using L1-norm
FCI are shown in (f) when three clusters were assumed and in (g) when four clusters were assumed. The second and fourth columns represent
histogram plots of corresponding resistivity models to their left. Black-colored solid lines in the resistivity models show the boundaries of the
synthetic model.
8 Singh et al.
of the clusters from a priori information. The recovered extra units
share the model space of the neighboring clusters and produce the
artifacts.
Inappropriate selection of the cluster centers in FCI
We further explored the effect of the inappropriate selection of
the cluster centers assuming that the selection of several clusters
is accurate. To test this, we perturbed the cluster center values from
the actual cluster center values for all the synthetic model examples
1–3 (Figures 1a, 3a, and 4a). These perturbed cluster centers
were assumed as ½100; 20T , ½5; 50; 10T , and ½300; 10T instead of
½100; 10T , ½1; 100; 10T , and ½100; 10T for synthetic models 1–3,
respectively. Inversion results using L1-norm FCI for three synthetic
models with perturbed cluster centers (Figure 5) clearly show that the
shapes of the geologic units do not change, whereas the boundaries of
the geologic units shift in all the synthetic models. Examples from
Figures 4 and 5 clearly demonstrate that FCI is highly dependent on
the selected number of the clusters and their respective cluster cen-
ters. However, selection of the appropriate number of clusters is a
vital input for FCI to recover a reasonably true model.
Field example
To examine the efficiency of our inversion algorithm on field data,
we inverted a 2D ERT profile data from the published work of Sol-
berg et al. (2016). The data were collected with 5 m electrode spacing
using a gradient array from a quick-clay landslide area at Esp, Trond-
heim, Norway. Various geophysical and geotechnical surveys have
been previously carried out on this site after a landslide in 2012 (Bar-
anwal et al., 2015; Solberg et al., 2015; Baranwal et al., 2017). The
Figure 5. Examples of choosing inappropriate cluster centers in
FCI. Inversion results from (a) synthetic model 1, (b) synthetic
model 2, and (c) synthetic model 3. Black solid lines (a and b) and
white solid lines (c) in the resistivity models show the boundaries of
the synthetic models. Each resistivity model has been plotted using
the same colorbar as in their respective synthetic examples
inverted model (Figure 6a) is modified after Figure 8a of Solberg
et al. (2016). This resistivity model was obtained using RES2DInv
software and robust L1-norm inversion (Loke and Barker, 1996). Sol-
berg et al. (2016) interpret four different geologic units along this 2D
ERT profile namely (1) unleached clay deposits (1 − 10 Ωm),
(2) leached clay deposits or possible quick clay (10 − 100 Ωm),
(3) dry crust clay deposits and coarse sediments (>100 Ωm), and
(4) bedrock (> 500 Ωm) as shown in Figure 6a. The classification
used by Solberg et al. (2016) is based on several geophysical and
geotechnical data from different studies in Scandinavia and Canada
(Solberg et al., 2008; Long et al., 2012; Solberg et al., 2012). A new
inverted resistivity model using the same general L1-norm (as de-
scribed in the “Inversion approach” section) is shown in Figure 6b.
Figure 6a and 6b reveal that the boundaries across the different geo-
logic units are not well-separated and resolved. The subsurface resis-
tivity was also measured by a resistivity cone penetration test unit
(RCPTU) at two locations B1 and B2. Locations of B1 and B2 with
respect to the ERT profile and the 2012 landslide site are shown in
Figure 7a. B1 (Hundal, 2014) was located at 150 m west of the pro-
file, and B2 (Montafia, 2013) was located directly on the ERT profile.
RCPTU is a small-scale, four-electrode sounding technique to per-
form in situ electrical resistivity measurements by pushing the unit
vertically in the soft soil (NIFS, 2014). Resistivity variations at these
two locations are similar as shown in Figure 7b. Figure 7c (y-axis
labeling on the left) shows the histogram plot of the resistivity mea-
sured at B1 and B2. To identify the different resistivity boundaries
present at locations B1 and B2, a kernel density estimation function
(Botev et al., 2010) is used, and the resulting plot is shown in Fig-
ure 7c (y-axis labeling on the right). Three major peaks are identified
at 7.6, 44.2, and 180 Ωm corresponding to unleached clay, leached
clay, and dry crust clay, respectively. These values would serve as
mean resistivity values of the classified clay materials inferred from
the borehole information. In this way, we got additional a priori in-
formation to use in FCI of the 2D ERT data.
Figure 6. Interpreted 2D resistivity section of ERT data from Esp,
Trondehim, Norway using (a) RES2DINV software (modified after
Figure 8a of Solberg et al., 2016) and (b) presented L1-norm general
inversion. Solberg et al. (2016) has identified four main types of
lithologic units in the study region.
 Fuzzy constrained inversion
We inverted measured 2D ERT data using two clustering infor-
mation: (1) four geologic units as unleached marine clay, leached
marine clay (possible quick clay), dry crust clay, and bedrock or
Figure 7. (a) Location of the boreholes B1 and B2 (black dot circle) with respect to the
chosen ERT profile (Black solid line). (b) Resistivity variation at B1 and B2 measured
from RCPTU. (c) Histogram (y-axis labeling on the left) and relative density (y-axis
labeling on the right) plot of resistivity.
Figure 8. (a) Inverted resistivity section using L1-norm FCI for the
same profile as shown in Figure 6a and (b) corresponding histogram
plot of inverted resistivity. (c) Geologic separation results by provid-
ing maximum membership values μik with respect to each geologic
unit. Four cluster centers were assumed based on the resistivity ranges
described by Solberg et al. (2016) and kernel density estimation (Fig-
ure 7c).
9
gravel, i.e., c ¼ 4, and (2) the mean resistivity values of these geo-
logic units as 8, 44, 180, and 1000 Ωm. Considering the fact that
there are four geologic units and only values for three cluster cen-
ters, i.e., v1 , v2 , and v3 are known, and v4 is un-
known, we put zero weight to the fourth geologic
rock unit (bedrock). In this situation, the cluster
center for the fourth geologic rock unit will be
governed by conventional FCM clustering. The
resulting resistivity model after L1-norm FCI
is shown in Figure 8a. The histogram plot (Fig-
ure 8b) depicts that L1-norm FCI-inverted resis-
tivity model (Figure 8a) has sharper boundary
contrasts compared with the general L1-norm in-
verted models (Figure 6a and 6b). According to
the resistivity ranges proposed by Solberg et al.
(2008, 2012), leached marine clay will have a
resistivity between 10 and 100 Ωm. Solberg et al.
(2016) confirm that marine clay is leached be-
tween 2 and 14 m at location B1 from the geo-
technical drills and soil samples. Figure 8a
depicts that the resistivity value falls down to
10 Ωm less than 14 m at B1 suggesting that
unleached marine clay is reached and that matches well with
RCPTU resistivity interpretation from this location (Figure 7b).
The FCI section describes that geologic units can also be distin-
guished uniquely by assigning each block to the cluster of the high-
est membership values μik (i.e., defuzzification) after solving for the
model update in each iteration. Figure 8c presents the identification
of four different geologic units based on maximum membership val-
ues after the final iteration. Figure 9 shows a similar convergence
patterns for general L1-norm and fuzzy L1-norm inversions. The
observed apparent resistivity pseudo-section and computed appar-
ent resistivity pseudosection for the inverted model (Figure 6b) after
L1-norm inversion are shown in Figure 10a and 10b, respectively.
Figure 10c shows the difference of the observed and computed data
as presented in Figure 10a and 10b. Figure 10d shows the computed
apparent resistivity pseudosection for the resistivity model pre-
sented in Figure 8a after fuzzy L1-norm inversion. The difference
between the observed (Figure 10a) and computed (Figure 10d) ap-
parent resistivity data is shown in Figure 10e. Figure 10c and 10e
shows almost similar level of data fitting in most of the regions;
however, L1-norm FCI seems better fitting at few locations. There-
fore, FCI is quite efficient to decipher different geologic units in the
model region, if the correct number of geologic units is provided by
the user. It is important to highlight that for field data interpretation,
Figure 9. Convergence pattern of data misfit ϕd during the itera-
tions for general L1-norm inversion and fuzzy constrained L1-norm
inversion for the field ERT data from Esp, Trondheim, Norway.
10 Singh et al.

L1- and L2-norm inversions. However, the pre-

sented FCI is an efficient tool to differentiate be-
tween two or more geologic units if the correct
number of the geologic unit is provided to FCI.
We also observe that the resistivity images ob-
tained from L1-norm FCI define the resistivity
boundaries better than those obtained from L2-
norm FCI. Inversion for synthetic models also re-
veals that inappropriate clustering information
would affect primarily the conductive geologic
units instead of the resistive geologic units. Syn-
thetic examples show that L1-norm converges
faster. A priori information of the correct number
of cluster centers and the correct value of these
cluster centers are very important inputs for a
successful FCI; however, the correct number of
cluster centers is of higher importance. A field
data example establishes the efficacy of the pre-
sented FCI in differentiating boundaries of the
possible quick clay zones from other geologic
units. The FCI resistivity model successfully in-
cludes the parametric information provided by
other geophysical and geotechnical surveys and
maintains the same degree of fitting between ob-
served and computed data as shown by the general
inversion.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Figure 10. Measured and computed data after L1-norm and fuzzy constrained L1-norm We thank X. Garcia (associate editor), R.
inversions for the field ERT data of Esp, Trondheim, Norway. (a) Measured apparent Schaa, and two anonymous reviewers for their
resistivity, (b) computed apparent resistivity using L1-norm inversion (for resistivity comments and suggestions which helped to im-
model shown in Figure 6b), (c) difference between the data shown in (a and b, d) com- prove the quality of the manuscript. A. Singh
puted apparent resistivity using fuzzy constrained L1-norm inversion (for resistivity
model shown in Figure 8a), and (e) the difference between the data shown in (a and d). thanks the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Kharagpur and the Ministry of Human Resources
and Development (MHRD) India for financial as-
we have a general idea of the number of different geologic units sistance of a research fellowship. Geological Survey of Norway
present in the study area as a priori information. This a priori in- (NGU) is thanked for providing the 2D ERT data. This work is a
formation helped the FCI to select the number of clusters for the part of the doctoral dissertation of A. Singh.
ERT data inversion. However, there could be geologic scenarios in
which we may not have such a priori information. In those geologic
scenarios, one can obtain the optimal number of cluster centers based APPENDIX A
on statistical analysis of clustering results (Milligan and Cooper,
1985; Halkidi et al., 2001).
MEASURES OF THE LENGTH OF VECTORS
Misfit error between observed ERT and computed ERT data can
be calculated using various norms. Let us assume following data
CONCLUSION error vector:
Application of any clustering algorithm as a postinversion proc-
e ¼ dobs − dpre : (A-1)
ess may vary from the actual model obtained from inversion of the
measured data. Therefore, an approach for delineating geologic
The measure of equation A-1 in general Lp-norm is defined as
units from the geoelectrical resistivity models by incorporating a
clustering process within the inversion algorithm is proposed. The X
N
method is based on incorporating FCM clustering to the 2D inver- kekpp ¼ jek jp ; (A-2)
sion of the ERT data. FCI fulfills two needs: (1) obtaining a resis- k¼1
tivity model in which the response minimizes the data misfit
function and (2) the recovered resistivity model will be guided by where N is the number of observed ERT data. The variable p can be
additional a priori parametric information. We demonstrate with the ≥ 1 depending on the chosen norm. In the present study, we have
help of synthetic examples that the boundaries between geologic used a modified version of Lp-norm (Ekblom, 1987; Farquharson
units are less pronounced in models obtained from conventional and Oldenburg, 1998; Sun and Li, 2014) defined as
 Fuzzy constrained inversion 11

p 8
lðeÞ ¼ ðe2 þ ε2 Þ 2 ; (A-3) < Wd ðdk þ Sk Δmkþ1 − dobs Þ j ¼ d
Lj¼ðd;s;iÞ ¼ Wm ðmk þ Δmkþ1 − mref Þ j ¼ s ; (B-5)
: sm k
Wi ðm þ Δmkþ1 Þ j¼i
X
N
p will lead to
⇒ lðeÞ ¼ ðe2k þ ε2 Þ 2 ; (A-4)
k¼1
∂ϕ ∂½ϕd fLd g − ϕ 
¼
where ε is a small positive scalar quantity (10−6 in the present study). ∂ðΔm Þ
kþ1 ∂ðΔmkþ1 Þ
P

∂½α1 ϕm1 fLs g þ 4i¼2 αi ϕm2 fLi g

APPENDIX B þ λ1 : (B-6)
∂ðΔmkþ1 Þ
MINIMIZATION FOR THE INVERSE PROBLEM
USING GENERAL MEASURES Differentiating the right side of equation B-6 by the chain rule and
putting the value of Ld , Ls , and Li from equation B-5 result in
Considering the minimization of model regularization parameter
along with data misfit function and using Tikhonov parametric ∂½ϕd fLd g − ϕ  ∂ϕd ðLd Þ ∂ðWd ðdk þ Sk Δmkþ1 − dobs ÞÞ
function (same as equation 6) in the present study: ¼ ;
∂ðΔmkþ1 Þ ∂ðLd Þ ∂ðΔmkþ1 Þ
ϕtotal ðmÞ ¼ kW d ðFðmÞ − dobs Þkpp þ λ1 fjjα1 Wm ref p
s ðm − m Þjjp ∂½ϕd fLd g − ϕ  ∂ϕ ðL Þ
¼ ðSk ÞT ðWd ÞT d d ; (B-7)
X
4 ∂ðΔm Þkþ1 ∂ðLd Þ
p 
þ jjαi Wm
i mjjp g; s:t: ϕ < ϕ ; (B-1)
i¼2 where superscript T is the transpose of the matrix. Similarly, putting
the values of all the differential terms in equation B-6 results in
where ϕ is the target misfit. Using the same nomenclature of Far-

quharson and Oldenburg (1998), the objective function to be mini- ∂ϕ ∂ϕ ðL Þ
mized can be written as ¼ ðSk ÞT ðWd ÞT d d
∂ðΔm Þ
kþ1 ∂ðLd Þ
 

X ∂ϕm2 ðLi Þ
T ∂ϕd ðLs Þ þ
4
ϕ ¼ ϕd fWd ðFðmÞ − dobs Þg − ϕ  þ λ1 ½ϕm1 þ λ1 α1 ðWms Þ α i ðW m ÞT :
∂ðLs Þ i
∂ðLi Þ
X
4 
i¼2

× fα1 Wm (B-8)
s ðm − m Þg þ ϕm2 α i Wm
ref
i m : (B-2)
i¼2
Differentiation of equation A-3 will result in
Let us assume that model at kth iteration is mk , predicted data are
dk for this model and model update at k þ 1th iteration is ∂lðeÞ p

mkþ1 ¼ mkþ1 − mk . Writing equation B-2 for mkþ1 using Taylor’s ¼ pðe2 þ ε2 Þ 2 −1 e: (B-9)
∂e
series expansion of FðmÞ and discarding the second and higher or-
der derivatives result in Following the analogy of equation B-9,
   

∂F ∂ϕd ðLd Þ
ϕðmkþ1 Þ¼ ϕd Wd Fðmk Þþ Δmkþ1 −dobs −ϕ p
¼ pððLd Þ2 þ ε2 Þ 2 −1 ðLd Þ; (B-10)
∂m ∂ðLd Þ

þλ1 α1 ϕm1 fWm
s ðm þΔm
k kþ1
−mref Þg

4
∂ϕd ðLd Þ
þ αi ϕm2 fWm
i ðm þΔm
k kþ1 Þg ; (B-3) ¼ Rd Ld ; (B-11)
i¼2
∂ðLd Þ

where Rd is a diagonal matrix of which elements can be expressed

using equations B-10 and B-5 as follows:
⇒ ϕðmkþ1 Þ ¼ ½ϕd fWd ðdk þ Sk Δmkþ1 − dobs Þg − ϕ  0 1
2 2 −1 p
p½ðWd1 ðdk1 þ Sk Δmkþ1 − dobs
1 ÞÞ þ ε 
2
þ λ1 α1 ϕm1 fWms ðm þ Δm
k kþ1
− mref Þg B k Δmkþ1 − dobs ÞÞ2 þ ε2 p2 −1 C
B p½ðW ðd
d k
þ S C
Rd ¼ diagB C:
2 2 2

B .. C
X
4 @ . A
þ αi ϕm2 fWm ðm k þ Δmkþ1 Þg : (B-4) p½ðWdN ðdkN þ Sk Δmkþ1 − dobs 2 2 −1 p
N ÞÞ þ ε 
i 2
i¼2
(B-12)
Now differentiating equation B-4 with respect to Δmkþ1 and
assuming Similarly,
 12 Singh et al.

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 Fuzzy constrained inversion 15

Queries
1. Pidlisecky et al., 2008 has been changed to Pidlisecky and Knight, 2008 per the reference list. Please check.

2. Please provide full reference information for the citation Wade et al. (2004), or may we delete the citation?

3. Please provide full reference information for the citation Hansen, 1998, or may we delete the citation?

4. Please check the inconsistencies in the usage of "Wm m

i " and "W i ".

5. Please provide the volume and page range of Adhikari et al., 2016.

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