Use of vegetation to assess ground conditions

Geoff Cocks

Before drilling a borehole or digging a test pit, just looking at the vegetation can tell us quite a bit about the ground conditions. Is the groundwater shallow? Is the groundwater brackish? Is the site likely to be contaminated? Plants such as paperbark trees, samphire and castor oil bushes can provide a guide.

Geoff will outline some of the correlations observed in WA.

About the speaker

Geoff Cocks

Geoff is a retired Geotechnical engineer with more than 45 years professional experience. He has worked for Main Roads WA, New Zealand Geological Survey, Coffey and ARRB.

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