Developing a GIS‑based landfill site

suitability map for the Aksaray

province, Turkey
Şevket Tulun1 · Esra Gürbüz2 · Talip Arsu3 – (Published online: 7 April 2021 – Springer)
Abstract
 8% of the study area was not suitable, 20% was lowly suitable, 14% was
moderately suitable, 51% was suitable and 7% was highly suitable for landfill
construction.
 Among the highly suitable areas, two alternative locations were identified in
the southern part of the province of Aksaray.
 The first alternative (Alternative-I) has an area of ⁓184 km2 and ~ 35 km
away from the Aksaray city center
 The secondalternative (Alternative-II) has an area of 3133 km2,and ~ 65 km
away from the city center.
 Both alternative areas are suitable within 30 years of waste storage period.
Introduction
 Municipal solid waste (MSW) is mainly generated by human activities, swift
urbanization, and the waste generation rate is principally related to population size
 according to data from the year 2017, estimates that the urban population of Turkey
generates 1.17 kg solid waste per capita per day, and it was determined that a total of
87,000 tons per day were produced
 Uncontrolled solid waste increases the problem of environmental pollution, emission of
toxic pollutants, pollution of soil and water also emissions cause climate change and
global warming and creates harmful effects on human health
 Developments in engineering and new technology have made it physically possible to
locate landfills almost anywhere. However, This is hardly possible, particularly when
numerous criteria and constraints must be taken into consideration and a consequently
large amount of spatial data are required to be evaluated.
Introduction
 Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a fundamental approach to multi-criteria
decision making.
 In AHP, the decision-maker conducts simple pairwise comparisons that are then used to
develop overall priorities for ranking the selected alternatives
 In the present study, the environmental and economic criteria determined for new
regular landfill site selection in the province of Aksaray, Turkey were compared with
the AHP method. Mapping was developed with a GIS program by calculating the
weights of the criteria.
Introduction
 Aksaray is located in the largest closed drainage basin (Konya closed Basin) of
Turkey. In addition, it is one of the rapidly growing cities in Turkey.
Population growth in the past 10 years is around 10%. With the increasing
population in the city, the amount of waste produced by this population also
increases and the capacity of the existing solid waste storage facilities has
started to fall behind.
 On the other hand, the Lake Tuz region is one of the Turkey’s most important
Special Environmental Protection Areas (SEPA) and largest part of the region
is located in the Aksaray province.
 Although there is another study conducted around the Aksaray province for
selection of landfill sites using GIS , that study includes the evaluation of
criteria for just limited area. For this reason, it is necessary to choose a new
landfill sites that will cover the entire city with current methods.
Materials and method
 Site selection criteria by AHP (five-point rating scale)
Criteria weight
calculation
GIS application and analysis
 The suitability of the landfill criteria was
organized into not suitable, lowly suitable,
moderately suitable, suitable, and highly
suitable rankings, which were represented
in colors, namely red, orange, yellow,
green, and blue, respectively. As it is not
suitable for the construction of a landfill
site, the location of Lake Tuz was
considered as 1 point for all parameters.
GIS application and analysis
Results
 The weighted average values obtained by comparing the factors with each
other were calculated and are given in Table 6.
 Environmental factors (W: 0.869769) were determined to be more important
than economic factors (W: 0.130230). It is determined that the most
important environmental factor is the distance to conservation areas (W:
0.46488293).
Results
 In cases, where the criterion weights of environmental factors (W: 0.5) and economic
factors (W: 0.5) are equal, while the slope has become the most important sub-criteria
(W: 0.352592), land use becomes the least important one (W: 0.028188).
 In other words, the reason why the slope sub-criteria did not have a high
criterionweight in this study is that the experts give more importance to environmental
factors. In cases where the opinion of an expert group that attaches importance to
economic factors, or if the criteria are given equal weight, the results may completely
change.
Results
 According to the results of the study, 556 km2 across Aksaray were
determined as highly suitable, 4135 km2 as suitable, 1146 km2 as moderately
suitable, 1580 km2 as lowly suitable and 667 km2 as not suitable for the
construction of landfills.
 The areas that were found to be highly suitable for regular landfill
construction were located in the southern part of Aksaray. Among these
areas, two alternative locations were determined as the highly suitable areas
for the construction of landfills (Fig. 12).
 The first alternative (Alternative-I) has an area of ⁓184 km2 in the southern
region of the study area, and ~35 km away from the Aksaray city center,
while the second alternative (alternative-II) has an area of 3133 km2, and ~65
km away from the city center.
Discussion and conclusions
 Among all waste disposal methods, the landfill
method is the most commonly preferred because
of its low cost and convenience. However, it is the
least preferable option from environmental point
of view, but landfill gas to energy (LFGTE)
projects that capture methane from landfills for
electricity and heat recovery, provide energy and
environmental benefits.
 Discussion and conclusions
 In addition, as a factor not included in the weighting, it is necessary to consider the
effect of the dominant wind directions on the settlements in the region. Considering
the geographical features of the Aksaray province, it is seen that the higher parts of
the topography are located in the east of the city.
 Therefore, the prevailing wind directions in Aksaray is towards. Although the
alternative areas selected for the landfill site remain in the SW of the settlements,
ALT I is approximately 35 km and ALT II is approximately 65 km from Aksaray city
center. Most of the other settlements in the region are located further east of the
city center.The probability of unwanted odors reaching settlements will decrease
due to the selected landfill sites being located far away. In addition, the possible
effect of wind is a situation that can be solved with low costs.
 With the developing technology, methods such as cover material containing biochar,
biofilters, commercial and industrial fines and woodchip facilitate the confinement
of scent.
Discussion and conclusions
 Another factor that does not participate in the weighting but arises from the
tectonic characteristics of the region is the TGFZ, which is an active fault
that bounds Aksaray from the east . For a possible earthquake activity of the
fault represents a risk for the alluvium ground conditions of Aksaray.
Therefore, the areas where the fault passes and its surroundings will not be
suitable for a landfill site.
 The site suggested as a result of the study is located quite far from the fault
zone.
Discussion and conclusions
 Some of the unsuited conditions can be easily improved by engineering
approaches as mentioned above (e.g., ground type, wind direction). However,
some condition cannot be changed such as convention area or wetlands.
Therefore, in filed selection studies, factors that are unlikely to be improved
must have high weight.