OPTIMIZED LANDFILL SITE SELECTION FOR MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Improper solid waste disposal has remained the major bottleneck for the socio-economic development particularly in urban and peri-urban areas of developing countries. Increased solid waste generation and improper disposal methods endanger human health and the environment. Since solid waste management and disposal site in the study area was inefficient and unsecured. As a result, the community is confronted with serious environmental, social, and economic issues. This study was conducted with the main aim of identifying an optimum municipal solid waste (MSW) management subsequently selecting the best landfill site in Hossana town by integrating geographical information system (GIS) and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) techniques. Accordingly, GIS integrated with MCDA was used to analyze the relative weight of each criterion and the overall suitability map, where ten criteria were considered within their respective constraints. To investigate an optimum landfill site, environmental and socioeconomic factors such as distance from settlement, land use and land cover, lineament, slope, road, and wind direction/aspect were weighted. To rank the aforementioned factors, experts' opinions were obtained. Population growth, waste generation rate, and waste volume/year were used to calculate the required landfill size. The study finding revealed that the town's MSW generation rate was 0.45 kg/cap/day, which was within the range of most of Ethiopian urban areas. On the other hand, the total daily and annual MSW generation was 79.58 and 29,047 tonnes, respectively. Moreover, the study's findings revealed that 20.8 % of the solid waste was recyclable and 79.20 % was non recyclable. Considering the future trend of waste generation, 19 ha of land in the city's Northern and Southern outskirts was chosen as a candidate landfill site with all the necessary suitability analysis