Soil & groundwater baseline
Characterise your baseline. Soil, then groundwater.
GDM turns the laboratory data you already hold into a defensible C1 soil and C2 groundwater baseline for Dubai Municipality clearance. Every value traced to its source.
Traceable
Every statement in the baseline traces back to a laboratory result or a cited standard.
Deterministic
Threshold decisions are made by a fixed, versioned rule set: the same inputs always give the same answer.
Specialist-led
Software scales the specialist. It does not replace the judgement behind a signed assessment.
The baseline
Two assessments the regulator asks for. Compiled to the schedule, not to a guess.
A Dubai Municipality submission needs a soil baseline and a groundwater baseline. We compile both against the parameters the schedule prescribes, checked one at a time, and reported against the applicable screening value or as having none.
C1 soil baseline
The shallow profile classified and screened for contamination against the DM Appendix 4 schedule, with the prescribed sampling design and units checked rather than assumed.
C2 groundwater baseline
Water levels and 45 physical, inorganic, organic and microbiological parameters read against the applicable screening values, with laboratory qualifiers preserved.
One evidence chain
Both compiled on the same evidence store, so every number carries the document, page and method it came from.
Going further
Then the ground nobody characterises: the orphan zone.
In practice, many C1 soil assessments characterise the shallow sampled profile, while groundwater and hydrogeological studies focus on the saturated system. The unsaturated profile between the investigated soil interval and the water table is therefore frequently not characterised hydraulically.
The soil baseline
Characterises the shallow sampled profile to the depths its scope prescribes.
The orphan zone
The orphan zone
The unsaturated ground between the sampled soil and the water table. The path water and contaminants actually travel, and frequently not characterised hydraulically by either scope.
The groundwater baseline
Characterises the saturated system, its levels, chemistry and screening comparison.
Forensic Asset Hydrogeology
Characterise it, and the analysis gets better. One system, not two reports.
Read the soil baseline, the unsaturated profile and the groundwater baseline as one system, and you can say how water and contaminants move between them. That is the incentive to go beyond two separate baselines: a single, more complete account of the site.
How it works
Three steps, starting from the reports you already hold.
Most sites already hold more evidence than has been interpreted. The usual starting point is a geotechnical investigation, a set of borehole logs or a groundwater monitoring round.
- 1your data
Send us what exists
Geotechnical reports, borehole logs, laboratory certificates or groundwater monitoring data. Not sure what is useful? Send what you have and we will tell you.
- 2deterministic
Structured review
Results read against the applicable schedules and screening values by a versioned rule set, units checked rather than assumed. Where a comparison cannot be made, the review says so.
- 3traceable
Receive the assessment
A structured baseline setting out what the evidence shows, what it does not, the uncertainties that remain, and the recommended next actions. Each statement traceable to its source.
The platform
The same evidence, visible to you.
The work runs on GDM's own evidence platform: documents in, results checked against the applicable schedules, every claim carrying the source it came from. The live tools are open. See how a laboratory number becomes an answer before you send us anything.
Who this is for
Built for the people who carry subsurface obligations.
Soil and groundwater baselines land on whoever holds the programme, the asset or the approval. These are the roles the services are designed around.
- Construction contractors
- Infrastructure owners
- Property developers
- Environmental consultants
- Government and regulators
- Utilities
- Mining
- Industrial facilities
- Energy
What you receive
Typical deliverables, aligned to the DM schedules.
Scope is agreed per engagement. These are the deliverables the services are built around.
Baseline soil quality assessment
The DM Appendix 4 baseline soil schedule: physical parameters, chemical contamination and the quantitative soil volumes, reported against the prescribed sampling design and units.
Baseline groundwater quality assessment
The DM Appendix 3 baseline groundwater schedule: 45 physical, inorganic, organic and microbiological parameters, each compared against its screening value or reported as having none.
Hydrogeological interpretation
A conceptual account of the site: hydrostratigraphy, recharge sources, flow controls, perched or confined conditions, and the hydrochemical evidence behind each.
Contaminant migration review
Source, pathway and receptor across the soil profile, the unsaturated zone and the saturated system, stating which pathways the evidence supports and which remain open.
Recharge assessment
Characterisation of the unsaturated profile and the water reaching the water table through it, using a physically-based unsaturated-zone solver as the method.
Expert witness and dispute support
Technical support for disputes and proceedings, built on evidence reproducible from the archived inputs.
Due diligence support
Subsurface environmental review for transactions, with the limits of the available evidence stated explicitly.
Environmental impact support
The soil and groundwater sections of an environmental impact submission, prepared to the applicable regulatory schedule.
Why clients trust GDM
Named specialists stand behind every certified assessment.
Assessments are certified by a named individual with a stated credential. Nothing is signed by a system.
Approximately 20 years of international consulting experience
Gary Morgan, Chief Hydrogeologist. Groundwater systems, vadose-zone processes, contaminant transport and conceptual site models.
Professional Natural Scientist (Pr.Sci.Nat)
South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions, Registration No. 400155/11.
MSc Hydrology
University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.
Dubai ESD Environmental Codes C2 and D
Registration No. 001/2025. Renewal submitted.
Work across 17 countries
International consulting practice, with UAE and wider GCC focus.
Judgement is retained, never delegated
Software applies the specialist's own standard consistently. It does not decide, and it does not sign.
A straight answer
How AI is used, and where it stops.
AI helps with reading documents, extracting data from laboratory certificates and spotting patterns worth a specialist's attention. It does not decide anything. Every threshold comparison is made by a deterministic, versioned rule set, and no automated step can raise the strength of a finding or certify an assessment. Those are decisions a named specialist makes and signs. An assistant to the specialist, not a replacement for one.
See it first
Look at a finished baseline before you commission one.
The sample is a synthetic site, produced by the same engine and reviewed by the specialist who would sign yours. It shows the structure, the detail and how each statement is traced back to its source.
Engagement
Three ways to work with us.
Which tier fits depends on what you already hold and what the answer has to survive: a design decision, a submission, or a challenge.
Rapid Review
Indicative previewYou need a fast read on whether a site has a problem worth investigating.
- An indicative preview from the live tools, using published data and a versioned rule base
- A specialist read of the reports you already hold, identifying what they show and what they leave open
- A written scoping note: the questions the existing evidence cannot answer, and what it would take to answer them
- Clearly labelled as an indicative preview, not an assessment, and not for design or permit submission
Recommended
Professional Review
Certified assessmentYou need a certified assessment for a single site, for submission or for a design decision.
- Full assessment against the applicable schedule, soil, groundwater, or the integrated assessment across both and the profile between them
- Every statement traced to a laboratory result or a cited standard, and reproducible from the archived inputs
- Threshold comparisons made by a deterministic, versioned rule set; where no threshold is registered, that is reported rather than filled
- Reviewed claim by claim and signed by the named specialist responsible
- Uncertainties, data gaps and the limits of the evidence stated explicitly rather than in a footnote
Enterprise
Certified assessmentYou hold a portfolio, a programme, or a dispute that turns on subsurface evidence.
- Everything in the Professional Review, applied consistently across multiple sites
- Portfolio-level comparison, with the same rule version applied to every site so results are genuinely comparable
- Expert witness and dispute support, built on evidence reproducible from the archived model and input files
- Ongoing monitoring programme design and periodic re-assessment
- Direct access to the certifying specialists throughout the engagement
We quote per engagement. Scope, site count and the evidence you already hold move the number enough that a published rate would mislead more often than it helped.
Next step
Ready to characterise your site's baseline?
Send us the investigation reports you already hold. We will tell you what they show, what they do not, and what a baseline would add, before you commit to anything.
- A specialist read of the reports you already hold
- What the evidence shows, and what it leaves open
- No obligation before you commission anything