Zonation and Land Suitability Evaluation for MSW Landfill (Case Study: Kahnouj City)

Nowadays the increasing development of urban areas, population growth and using irresolvable products have led waste disposal become a main concern for urban management. Due to the complexity of urban issue it is better to use new models and techniques especially multi-criteria decision-making models and combining them with geographic information system (GIS), to identify suitable areas for landfill. In this research multiple criteria decision making (AHP) techniques have been used for weighting and also SAW model has been used for integrating layers affecting the location of the landfill in Kahnooj. In this regard 16 criteria were used as follows: distance from agricultural lands and gardens and land use, distance from flood-prone area, watercourse, aqueduct, drinking water wells and wind direction, distance from Kahnooj, residential areas and urban centers, distance from communication lines, industrial zone, electric power lines and distance from faults, soil type, slope and bedrock. According to the results, town lands were classified based on suitability for landfill into 4 ranges: very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad. Lands with very good level were 5201/2 hectares, lands fairly level were 5137/4 hectares. Finally, two places were offered between lands with very appropriate features to bury the waste disposal in Kahnooj. The results showed that between existing landfills in Kahnooj town, site No. 1 is in a very bad level and it is not wise to continue using it for landfill and site No. 2 is very appropriate.