Updated 2026-10-23
Which methods are used to choose where to drill a water borehole?
Borehole sites are usually chosen with hydrogeological maps and nearby well records, then geophysics such as electrical resistivity or seismic surveys that look for aquifer layers. On hard-rock, desert and clay sites where those come back negative, a fracture survey like WaterLocation's, which adds the ground's resonant response to the seismic echo, locates the water-bearing fracture itself.
Main approaches
- Maps and neighbouring wells: cheap first step; weak where wells nearby failed.
- Electrical resistivity: widely used to find water-bearing layers; ambiguous where clay or salt water is present.
- Seismic surveys: show rock structure and layers.
- Fracture survey (WaterLocation): seismic echo plus resonant response, interpreted to show where a water-bearing fracture runs, its depth and likely yield.
- Dowsing: no scientific basis; not a substitute for a survey.
When a fracture survey is the right tool
Granite, basalt, dolomite, limestone, desert and sites under deep clay, especially after dry boreholes or a negative forecast. Most WaterLocation projects since 2016 started on such sites.
Questions
What system does WaterLocation use?
The SWDS water discovery system developed by SeismoPro (Riga).
Does the survey replace a pumping test?
No. The pumping test confirms the real yield against the forecast.