Locating an appropriate landfill for rural wastes using the AHP model and GIS software (Case study: Mahneshan town)

One important problem in the rural areas is the issue of locating an appropriate landfill for solid wastes. Rural environmental protection is among the essentials of a rural developmnet. Lack of management in a sanitary landfill is a sign of Lack of planning and Lack of considering the various environmental issues. The present study with the aim of locating a suitable landfill for rural solid wastes was conducted in Mahneshan city.
In this research, to assess an appropriate landfill for rural wastes in mahneshan town, eight important and efficient parameters in locating an appropriate landfill including slope, elevation, distance from the rural points, channels, roads, faults, protected areas, and mines were considered. The identified parameters were compared by incorporating the Analytic Hierarchy Analysis (AHP) method in a pairwise manner and the corresponding weight of each factor, which indicates the effect of that factor, was calculated using the Expert Choice software.
by combining the weight layers obtained in the Arc GIS environment, the final location map for considered landfill was prepared and categorized in 5 classes (completely inapproppriate, inapproppriate, intermediate, approppriate and completely approprite).
The results showed that in this categorization, the appropriate and completely appropriate zones with 643.9 and 374.5 squre kilometers had the highest preferability for the considered landfill respectively. These zones were prioritized with a 36.9% of the total area of the town, for this matter.