Modeling of Leachate Generation from Landfill Sites

Abstract

With rapid urbanization and industrialization, Bhutan is developing at a fast pace due to which solid waste generation is increasing day by day and hence its management has become a great issue. One of the management issues that are faced in the management of landfills is the generation of toxic soup from landfills known as leachate which is one of the causes of water and soil pollution. The landfills in Bhutan lack a proper leachate management system and those that have leachate collection tanks are very uneconomical due to unreliable methods being used to determine the leachate generated amount. Leachate generation from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills by various methods such as Standard, Rational, and Mass balance methods was determined, analyzed the results and ultimately developed a reliable method for determining the amount of leachate generated by a landfill known as “Fusion method”. The quantified leachate volume from the study area was 4565.98 m3 with the annual precipitation amount being 15156.09 m3 with the developed (fusion) method. Validation of the model was performed on data from Deir Al Balah landfill, Gaza strip, Palestine. The validated amount of leachate generation is about 123,833.08 m3 by the fusion method, while the actual amount of leachate generated was about 114,351 m3 from which the percentage difference between the fusion method and the actual amount of leachate generated was found to be only 8.29%, compared to other methods with % error ranged from 10-55 %.