Analysis of leachate pollution index and formulation of sub-leachate pollution indices

Abstract

An index known as leachate pollution index (LPI) for quantifying the leachate contamination potential of municipal landfills had been developed and reported by the authors. It is a quantitative tool by which the leachate pollution data of landfill sites can be reported uniformly. LPI is an increasing scale index and has been formulated based on the Delphi technique. It provides a convenient means of summarizing complex leachate pollution data and facilitates its communication to the general public, field professionals and policy makers. However, it is observed that the LPI, like any other environmental index, fails to effectively communicate the details about the strength of various pollutants/pollutant groups present. In an effort to make the LPI more informative and useful, it is proposed to divide the LPI into three sub-indices. The aggregation of these three sub-LPIs will result in the overall LPI. The formulation and the application of LPI and its three sub-indices are presented in this paper. It has been concluded that the splitting of LPI into three sub-indices provides a better insight on the strength of various pollutants and can be useful to the experts in deciding various management issues regarding leachate treatment. The leachate characteristics of a UK landfill have been used as a case study to demonstrate the calculation of three sub-LPIs and the overall LPI.