Optimisation of landfill sites for solid waste disposal in Thiruverumbur taluk of Tiruchirappalli district, India

Increasing population in the developing countries tend to generate more quantity of solid wastes, which are to be disposed through the proper Solid Waste Management (SWM). Landfill is one of the most common methods in SWM used for the disposal of solid wastes. However, evaluating the suitable site for establishing a landfill is more complex due to the integration of multi-factors. In such conditions, GIS-based Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) techniques play a major role in incorporating various factors and guidelines for identifying the suitable landfill site. Thus, the present study is conducted to select the suitable site for establishing a landfill in Thiruverumbur taluk of Tiruchirappalli district. For which, various factors (cultural, physical, demographic and environmental) and sub-factors (geomorphology, geology, soil texture, slope, settlement proximity, road proximity, rail proximity, industrial proximity, land use/land cover, NDVI, population density and household density) were utilised. The weights of level 1 and level 2 factors were determined using Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and the ratings for each class were obtained through fuzzy linear membership. Based on the weights and ratings, the Solid Waste Landfill Suitability Index (SWLSI) of has been derived and the SWLSI values indicates 15.29% of the study area is very highly suitable; 25.4%, highly suitable; 28.8%, moderately suitable; 19.6, low suitable and 10.7% very low suitable for situating a site for landfill use. Furthermore, based on the results and field observations, two candidate sites of landfill were proposed for the societal development.