Participation GIS for the monitoring of areas contaminated by municipal solid waste: A case study in the city of Pedro Ruiz Gallo (Peru)

Abstract

Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) combine geographic information with citizen or community participation to integrate local knowledge with issues related to natural resource management, territorial planning, and environmental pollution that are fundamental to decision-making. However, the current challenge is involving and educating the population to succeed in the PGIS. For this reason, a PGIS system was implemented to identify areas with higher solid waste accumulation and to determine the accuracy of the reports made by the trained population. A participatory platform was implemented using ArcGIS (Online, Desktop, Survey123, Web App Builder, and Experience Builder) for daily reporting of areas contaminated by solid waste. The information obtained for two months was used to generate Kernel density maps, which made it possible to identify the most contaminated regions of the city. A total of 2778 areas contaminated by solid waste were reported during the evaluation period, where 53 % (1486) presented a low level of contamination (area less than 1 m2), 16 % (442) had a medium level of contamination (area equal to 1 m2) and 31 % (850) reported a high level of contamination (area greater than 1 m2). The results allowed the generation of Kernel density maps showing 24 areas classified as 'Extremely High'. Saturdays and Sundays reported higher contamination concerning the other days of the week. The accumulation of contaminants is mainly in the water bodies located in the study area.