Abstract
A shortage of land for waste disposal is one of the serious problems that faces urban areas in developing countries. The Sulaimaniyah Governorate, located in the north of Iraq, is one of the major cities in the Kurdistan Region of the country, covering an area of 2400 km2 with a population of 856,990 in 2016. Currently, there is no landfill site in the study area that meets scientific and environmental criteria, and inappropriate solid waste dumping is causing negative environmental impacts. The process of landfill site selection is considered a complex process and is restricted by numerous factors and regulations. This paper proposes multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods in a model for landfill site decision. The model assumes the input of two groups of factors that need to satisfy the optimal values of weight coefficients. These groups of constants are natural factors and artificial factors, and they included thirteen selected criteria: slope, geology, land use, urban area, villages, rivers, groundwater, slope, elevation, soil, geology, road, oil and gas, land use, archaeology and power lines. The criteria were used in the geographic information system (GIS), which has a high capacity to process and analyze various data. In addition, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods followed by the weighted linear combination (WLC) method were used to derive criteria weightings using a matrix of pair-wise comparison. Finally, all the multi criteria decision methods were combined to obtain an intersection of the suitability index map for candidate landfill sites. Seven appropriate sites for landfill were suggested, all of which satisfied the scientific and environmental criteria which were adopted in this study.
Highlights
Municipal solid waste (MSW) is the main by-product of urban life
This paper proposes multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods in a model for landfill site decision
Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods followed by the weighted linear combination (WLC) method were used to derive criteria weightings using a matrix of pair-wise comparison
Summary
Municipal solid waste (MSW) is the main by-product of urban life. Approximately 3.5 million tons of MSW are generated daily on a global scale [1]. The Governorate of Sulaimaniyah has undergone fast urban growth in the last two decades [5] and the quantity of waste generation has risen at a high pace along with fast urbanization [1,4] This has caused negative impacts on the environment [6,7], not least because there is no available landfill site that fulfils the necessary scientific and environmental requirements. The weight of each influencing factor was determined by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), straight rank sum (SRS), ratio scale weighting (RSW), and simple additive weighting (SAW) methods; all models combined manage large complex data and achieve a robust result for a suitable landfill site decision. The objective of this research is to identify the most appropriate landfill site in the Governorate of Sulaymaniyah using important criteria that correspond to scientific and environmental standards
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