Landfill Site Selection Using GIS and (AHP): Case Study of Ranya City

Abstract

Ranya City is located in North West of Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Iraq. It has an area of (76.7) km2. In 2018, it was home for (102,571) inhabitants. Presently, there are no landfills in the study area that fulfills necessary environmental requirements; thus, informal and unsuitable solid waste dumping is negatively impacting human health and the environment. Land fill site selection can be a difficult task as it is impacted by different factors and regulations. This study is an attempt to identify and evaluate suitable landfill locations in the study area using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS). Ten criteria are used in this process which includes: groundwater depth, surface water, residential areas, Geological formations, slope, elevation, soil type, land use, roads and archeological sites. AHP was used to determine the weight for each criteria using pairwise comparison matrix. Three classes of suitability index were found: unsuitable (98.47%), moderately suitable (0.003%) and suitable (1.52%) of the study area. Three suitable landfill sites were identified as candidate sites that meet the requirements with an area of (0.29) km2, (0.12) km2 and (0.098) km2 respectively.