An assessment of suitable landfill site selection for municipal solid waste management by GIS-based MCDA technique in Siliguri municipal corporation planning area, West Bengal, India

Abstract

Identification of suitable landfill sites for urban wastes with ease and economic benefits in the metropolitan area is a complex task. Most of the developing countries consider wastelands outside of the urban areas are the ideal places to dispose of urban wastes. Landfill site selection is an essential planning procedure that helps to avoid environmental concerns such as water contamination, public health degradation caused by unsanitary landfills. So, employing a geographic information system (GIS) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), this study was carried out to find an appropriate planning waste dump site. Nine thematic layers were evaluated as key criteria, including elevation, slope, geology, lineament, land value, distance from river, roads, residence, and Land use and land cover (LULC) weights assigned using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) method analysis. The relative relevance of each parameter was calculated using Saaty’s 1 to 9 priority scale. The consistency ratio was used to check the weighting of each parameter, allowing the efficiency of the chosen parameters to be justified. The overlay analysis of all parameters with aid of GIS provides suitable sites that were marked and refined after the comprehensive field visits were performed. According to the findings, in the study area, 35.61% area is very low suitable for landfilling, 32.64% area is low suitable, 19.37% area is moderate suitable, 8.90% area is highly suitable and certainly, 3.48% area is very high suitable by Natural breaks classification. The very high suitable site belongs to Dhadagoch, Gadheaganj, and its surroundings in the study area. Nevertheless, the present study can help urban planners and concerned authorities to better succeed in urban waste management in the Siliguri municipal corporation planning area.