Application of geographical information system for sanitary landfill site selection

The objective of the study is to apply the Geographical Information System (GIS) as a potential tool to identify the most suitable locations for a new sanitary landfill within the Municipal Union of Al-Koura. Criteria used have been identified based on the guidelines produced by the Ministry of Environment and some additional constraints. The GIS maps (scale 1: 25,000) of topography, roads, soil, surface and groundwater, geology, buildings, and aerial photo of Al-Koura district were prepared and used for site selection. As for the operating system Windows XP and for the software, the packages ARCGIS 8.2, and ARCVIEW 8.2 were used. The site selection study has identified 6 potential areas for sanitary landfill sites. Based on the criteria, the GIS spatial operation using map layers worked very well using the ArcView 8.2. Moreover, three additional constraints were applied to narrow the potential land areas after sites visits such as the presence of fault, severe topography and access road. The final decision will be made on appropriate ranking techniques for the determination of a new landfill site since it has something to do with political decision, management issues and budget allocation.