Empowering Systems Analysis for Solid Waste Management: Challenges, Trends, and Perspectives

Solid waste management is a significant issue for sustainable development that involves the technical, socioeconomic, legal, ecological, political, and even cultural components. For this reason, systems analysis has been uniquely providing interdisciplinary support for policy analysis and decision making in solid waste management for the last few decades. Considering these challenges and accomplishments retrospectively, this paper presents a thorough literature review and in-depth discussions of systems analysis models that are promising for providing forward-looking, cost-effective, risk-informed, and environmentally benign decisions for sustainable solid waste management. To simplify the discussion, the spectrum of these systems analysis models was divided into three 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; the second domain introduces systems analysis platforms, such as management information systems/decision support systems/expert systems; and the third domain introduces system assessment tools including scenario development, material flow analysis, life-cycle assessment, risk assessment, environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment, socioeconomic assessment, and sustainable assessment. While some models or tools may be elucidated with respec...