Water balance for landfills

Abstract

10.2.1 Thornthwaite method The earliest, comprehensive method for water balance analysis was developed by Thornthwaite and Mather (1957). Fenn et al. (1975) developed for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) a water balance method for predicting leachate generation for solid waste disposal sites based on the Thornthwaite method, proposing runoff coefficients for landfills and moisture storage values for municipal waste. The water balance method employs average monthly values of precipitation and other climatic parameters. To determine monthly infiltration (IN) into the cover, one subtracts monthly runoff (R) from monthly precipitation (P).