Integrating GIS and multi-criteria decision analysis for landfill site selection, case study: Javanrood County in Iran

The current study presents the integration of geographical information system (GIS) and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for municipal landfill site selection, a case example in Iran. In the first step, useful criteria were determined based on the literature review, national standards and regulations, expert opinion, data availability and regional characteristics. Several criteria including distance from groundwater resources, distance from surface water, distance from urban and rural areas, distance from protected areas, land use, distance from faults, distance from roads and the slope were selected, and a hierarchical structure was formed for landfill suitability. The maps of the criteria were prepared using ArcGIS 10.2. Using different fuzzy membership functions, the maps were standardized. An AHP-based pairwise comparison was applied to calculate the weights of the parameters, and standardized maps were overplayed using the weighted layer combination approach to gain the landfill suitability map in the study area. The final map was assorted into four suitability classes, i.e., high, moderate, low and unsuitable regions. The result indicates that almost 92% of the study area is inappropriate and cannot be considered as landfill. The comprehensive field visits were performed to further assessment, and finally, three candidate sites were suggested. The result illustrated that an integrating approach of GIS and MCDA is effective in landfill site selection.