Landfill Suitability Analysis using GIS (Geographic Information System) and AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process): A case study of Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska

The objective of this study was to identify and prioritize the potential sites that are the most suitable to host landfills using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska. First, the criteria that influence in a decision-making process of landfill placement in social, environmental, and physical perspectives were established, and the area was assessed based on the grading structure of each criterion on a scale of 0 to 10. The second step was the main process for the study using the AHP. Thirty-two experts who work as planners, engineers, landfill staff, and environmental officials took part in a survey that consisted of making judgements regarding the importance of the criteria. The participants’ judgement was used to calculate factor weight of each criterion using the AHP, and a final suitability map for the landfill was produced based on the weighted criteria. The excluded zones based on local and federal regulations were also applied to make the result more reflective of reality. Therefore, the final suitability result was described on a scale of 0 to 10 from the least suitable areas to the most suitable sites. Furthermore, the comparison between the map with the factor weights and without the factor weights was conducted to understand the importance of factor weight, and analysis of the factor weight by the participants’ group and location was completed to understand the difference of value in relation to landfill. Advisor: Yunwoo Na

Hazardous Waste Landfill Siting using GIS Technique and Analytical Hierarchy Process

Disposal of large amount of generated hazardous waste in power plants, has always received communities' and authori¬ties attentions. In this paper using site screening method and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) a sophisticated approach for siting hazardous waste landfill in large areas is presented. This approach demonstrates how the evaluation criteria such as physical, socio-economical, technical, environmental and their regulatory sub criteria can be introduced into an over layer technique to screen some limited appropriate zones in the area. Then, in order to find the optimal site amongst the primary screened site utilizing a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method for hierarchy computations of the process is recommended. Using the introduced method an accurate siting procedure for environmental planning of the landfills in an area would be enabled. In the study this approach was utilized for disposal of hazardous wastes of Shahid Rajaee thermal power plant located in Qazvin province west central part of Iran. As a result of this study 10 suitable zones were screened in the area at first, then using analytical hierarchy process a site near the power plant were chosen as the optimal site for landfilling of the hazardous wastes in Qazvin province

An Integrated Multicriteria and Fuzzy Logic Approach for Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Siting

Landfill site selection should take into account a wide range of alternative and evaluation criteria in order to reduce negative impacts on the environment. This study presents a geographic information systems-based multicriteria site selection of municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill in Ariana Region, Tunisia. The multicriteria decision integrates constraints and factors to select MSW landfill suitability. The methodology is used for ranking the best suitable landfill sites by the integration of fuzzy logic and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The fuzzy set theory is used to standardize criteria using different fuzzy membership functions while the AHP is used to establish the relative importance of the criteria. The AHP makes pairwise comparisons of relative importance between hierarchy elements assembled by environmental and socio-economic decision criteria. The landfill suitability is accomplished by applying weighted linear combination (WLC) that uses a comparison matrix to aggregate different importance scenarios associated with environmental and socio-economic objectives. Data were assorted into five suitability classes within the study area, i.e., high, suitable, moderate, low and very low suitability areas, which represented 5.4, 0.5, 12.5, 3.9 and 2.5%, of the study area, respectively. Additionally, 75.2% was considered to be completely unsuitable for a landfill site. As a result, two candidate landfill sites are suggested

Municipal solid waste management system: decision support through systems analysis

Thesis submitted to the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental EngineeringThe present study intends to show the development of systems analysis model applied to solid waste management system, applied into AMARSUL, a solid waste management system responsible for the management of municipal solid waste produced in Setúbal peninsula, Portugal. The model developed intended to promote sustainable decision making, covering the four columns: technical, environmental, economic and social aspects. To develop the model an intensive literature review have been conducted. To simplify the discussion, the spectrum of these systems engineering models and system assessment tools was divided into two broadly-based domains associated with fourteen categories although some of them may be intertwined with each other. The first domain comprises systems engineering models including cost-benefit analysis, forecasting analysis, simulation analysis, optimization analysis, and integrated modeling system whereas the second domain introduces system assessment tools including management information systems, scenario development, material flow analysis, life cycle assessment (LCA), risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment, socio-economic assessment, and sustainable assessment. The literature performed have indicated that sustainable assessment models have been one of the most applied into solid waste management, being methods like LCA and optimization modeling (including multicriteria decision making(MCDM)) also important systems analysis methods. These were the methods (LCA and MCDM) applied to compose the system analysis model for solid waste. The life cycle assessment have been conducted based on ISO 14040 family of norms; for multicriteria decision making there is no procedure neither guidelines, being applied analytic hierarchy process (AHP) based Fuzzy Interval technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Multicriteria decision making have included several data from life cycle assessment to construct environmental, social and technical attributes, plus economic criteria obtained from collected data from stakeholders involved in the study. The results have shown that solutions including anaerobic digestion in mechanical biological treatment plant plus anaerobic digestion of biodegradable municipal waste from source separation, with energetic recovery of refuse derived fuel (RDF) and promoting pays-as-you-throw instrument to promote recycling targets compliance would be the best solutions to implement in AMARSUL system. The direct burning of high calorific fraction instead of RDF has not been advantageous considering all criteria, however, during LCA, the results were the reversal. Also it refers that aerobic mechanical biological treatment should be closed.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - SFRH/BD/27402/200

Integrating GIS and multi-criteria decision analysis for landfill site selection, case study: Javanrood County in Iran

Abstract(#br)The current study presents the integration of geographical information system (GIS) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for municipal landfill site selection, a case example in Iran. In the first step, useful criteria were determined based on the literature review, national standards and regulations, expert opinion, data availability and regional characteristics. Several criteria including distance from groundwater resources, distance from surface water, distance from urban and rural areas, distance from protected areas, land use, distance from faults, distance from roads and the slope were selected, and a hierarchical structure was formed for landfill suitability. The maps of the criteria were prepared using ArcGIS 10.2. Using different fuzzy membership functions,..

Assessment of hybrid model for sustainable sanitary landfill siting using geospatial and geotechnical techniques

One of the major challenges in waste management is the issue of selecting an appropriate site for sustainable sanitary landfilling for the disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) due to the complexity of various factors that must be considered such as environmental, economic, and social. Therefore, this research developed an innovative hybrid model based on the integration of geographic information systems (GIS), multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and geotechnical technique following landfill siting guidelines and regulations. Therefore, in order to have a sustainable sanitary landfill site selection model, there is a need to evaluate geospatial and geotechnical properties of the area where the potential landfill is to be constructed. The research included identification criteria of siting sanitary landfill such as water bodies, geology, soils, elevation, slope, residential areas, archeological sites, airports, population, roads, railways, infrastructures, and land use. Due to the large volume of spatial data, GIS was used to manage, evaluate, and process these data. In addition, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to solve decision making problems where multiple alternatives and competing objectives are involved. Criteria maps obtained for this research were prepared in the GIS environment followed by the criteria weights obtained from AHP pairwise comparison matrix and normalization. Next, the weighted criteria were evaluated and overlaid through GIS software ArcGIS 10.3. Then, map production of the most suitable sites for sanitary landfill was carried out using QGIS. Finally, a hybrid model was developed by integrating geospatial and geotechnical techniques. The results from the GIS and AHP revealed the three most suitable sites for sustainable sanitary landfill site selection. This was further examined using geotechnical criteria, namely permeability, volumetric shrinkage and shear strength to obtain the best site. Additionally, computer modeling through digital image technique (using Surfer and Matlab software) was used to validate the model. The model developed from the results of this research can be used as a guide for sustainable sanitary landfilling in developed and developing countries

Use of a Combination of MRSS-ANP for Making an Innovative Landfill Siting Decision Model

Landfill siting is a complex, multicriteria decision-making problem that needs an extensive evaluation of environmental, social, land use, and operational criteria. Integration of a median ranked sample set (MRSS) and an analytic network process (ANP) has been implemented to rank the associated criteria and select a suitable landfill site. It minimizes the uncertainty and the subjectivity of human judgments. Four groups of experts with different backgrounds participated in this study, and each group contained four experts. The respondent preferences were ranked in a 4-by-4 matrix to obtain the judgment sets for the MRSS. These sets were subsequently analyzed using ANP to obtain the priorities in the landfill siting criteria. The results show that land topology and distance from surface water are the most influential factors, with priorities of 0.18 and 0.17, respectively. The proposed integrated model may become a promising tool for the environmental planners and decision makers

Landfill site selection using a hybrid system of AHP-Fuzzy in GIS environment: A case study in Shiraz city, Iran

Landfilling with simplicity and economic advantages is the most common element for waste management in both developed and developing countries. Landfill site selection in a proper way is an important municipal planning process which prevent environmental issues including water pollution imposed for insanitary landfills. The present research was developed to exhibit a simplified method of multi criteria decision making (MCDM) and Fuzzy memberships in GIS environment to ascertain best landfill sites for Shiraz county, located south of Iran. 15 most common sub-criteria, documented in literature and implicated by Iranian environmental protection organization (IEPO) including surface water, ground water, land use, distance to well, soil type, slope, protected area, fault in environmental group, residential area, road, airport, village, infrastructure, historical area, wind direction in socio-economical group were selected and the weight of each criterion was determined based on expert's knowledge with use of analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The results of the present research are as follows: � Distance to residential area and groundwaters with weight of 0.36 and 0.28 were recognized as the most important criteria for landfill site selection. � The six suitable areas for landfill in Shiraz county is 1.003 of total area equal to 8710 ha. � AHP and Fuzzy memberships has a great potential and ability for landfill site selection. © 2019 The Author(s