Analyzing site suitability for solid waste disposal through GIS multi-criteria decision making hierarchy process

Abstract

Currently the human beings are encircled by multiple types of problems, out of those the environmental degradation issue is one of the major problem which is caused by over population, rapid increase of urbanization and industrialization which result in production of huge quantity of solid wastes. Thus the effectual solid waste management and its disposal arrangements are required. Another major problem being faced globally is to locate an appropriate area for the disposal of hazardous wastes by overcoming main constraints including environmental, economic and political for spotting of a suitable site. In this study our focus is to spot a proper landfill site for the disposal of hazardous wastes for which we have selected industrial (radioactive) wastes of the district of Karachi East as a area for research. This district has wide range of Korangi Industrial Area and small portion of Landhi Industrial Area. In this research we have used methods of Decision Support System (DSS) based on Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) concerning all supportable measures. With the assist of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM), suitable alternative site for dumping solid waste has been selected on the basis of different factors performed on Arc Map 10.3, Erdas Imagine, e-Cognition developer by considering the decision maker’s expectations. The results show that after performing different investigations on the suitability indexes, the analyzed area which is most suitable for solid waste dumping is 200m away from Malir River.