TITLE:
Landfill Sites Identification Using GIS and Multi-Criteria Method: A Case Study of Intermediate City of Punjab, Pakistan
AUTHORS:
Adeel Ahmad, Umar Javaid, Muhammad Asif Javed, Sajid Rashid Ahmad, Muhammad Abbas Jaffri, Mudassar Ashfaq
KEYWORDS:
Urbanization, Urban Waste, Landfill Site (LFS), GIS, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geographic Information System,
Vol.8 No.1,
February
19,
2016
ABSTRACT: Escalation in population
over time triggered the abrupt exploitation of natural resources for human
survival trough industrialization that ultimately caused splendid increase in
the waste generation. This industrial development resulted in the migration of
rural community toward urban areas. Management of urban waste is a great
challenge for the urban administration. However, technologies have been
developed to manage the waste in environmental friendly and sustainable manner.
Sanitary landfill sites are one of the latest methods of disposing the
municipal solid waste in an environment friendly and sustainable manner.
Government and administrative authorities are adopting this technology for the
management of urban solid waste. Present study is about identifying landfill
sites for the Sahiwal city with an area of 1160 square kilometer and projected
population of 1.57 million persons in 2016. Geographical Information System
(GIS) is used for the identification of appropriate landfill site (LFS) that
can fulfill the need of city in future and is selected based on the sustainable
and eco-friendly criteria. The criteria are developed keeping in view the
proximity from several land-use featuresi.e.
water bodies, roads, settlements, agricultural land, bare land and existing
disposal sites. The weights of the criteria are quantified using pair-wise
comparison method in Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The weights are
incorporated in GIS spatial data environment and are assigned to proximity
threshold of each criterion. Ultimately a map for each criterion is developed
highlighting suitable, least suitable, less suitable and un-suitable areas with
respect to each specific criterion. These maps are spatially overlaid which
result in a final map that identifies most suitable landfill sites for solid
waste disposal. The five identified sites are then prioritized based on their
distances from the city center and area available. All identified sites are on
the bare land and contain considerable buffer from environmentally sensitive
receptors.