Abstract: The induced polarization method is used to detect the changes of apparent resistivity and apparent polarizability in the root environment of trees to judge the differences in root growth causes. By adopting electrical prospecting method around the roots of the same kind of trees with large growth potential difference on both sides of the dormitory road in Fengxian campus of Shanghai Institute of Technology, the apparent resistivity pseudo section and apparent polarization pseudo section around the roots are obtained, so as to speculate and verify the cause of the large growth potential difference of trees on both sides of the road. The results show that there is no obvious difference between the pseudo section diagrams of apparent resistivity of roads on both sides of the roadside trees, but there is a large difference between the pseudo section diagrams of polarizability. There are many high polarization anomalies on the sparse side of the roadside trees, and the high polarization morphology of the pseudo section diagrams corresponds well to the location of underground power pipelines. The results show that the induced polarization method has high accuracy in detecting the position of underground pipelines and soil environmental changes.