Waveform tomographic imaging of crosshole georadar data is a powerful
method to investigate the shallow subsurface because of its ability
to provide images of pertinent petrophysical parameters with extremely
high spatial resolution. All current crosshole georadar waveform
inversion strategies are based on the assumption of frequency-independent
electromagnetic constitutive parameters. However, in reality, these
parameters are known to be frequency-dependent and complex and thus
recorded georadar data may show significant dispersive behavior.
In this paper, we evaluate synthetically the reconstruction limits
of a recently published crosshole georadar waveform inversion scheme
in the presence of varying degrees of dielectric dispersion. Our
results indicate that, when combined with a source wavelet estimation
procedure that provides a means of partially accounting for the frequency-dependent
effects through an "effective" wavelet, the inversion algorithm performs
remarkably well in weakly to moderately dispersive environments and
has the ability to provide adequate tomographic reconstructions.