Sanitary Landfill Site Selection Using Spatial-AHP for Pshdar Area, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region/Iraq

Municipal solid waste management is a crucial issue in most countries, especially the site selection process for disposing of solid wastes. Landfill site selection is a complex and difficult process because it requires multiple evaluation criteria and alternative approaches to be considered. In this study, thirteen criteria including (rivers, lake, geology, elevation, slope, agriculture, groundwater depth, power line, roads, archaeological sites, infrastructures, urban centers, and villages) were considered in Pshdar area which are divided into two categories, namely natural environmental factors and artificial factors. To identify the most suitable landfill site, an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was integrated with a geographic information system (GIS) to evaluate, manipulate, and present spatial criteria. All maps are ranked from 1 lowest suitability to 10 highest suitability using spatial AHP. The candidate sites were determined by aggregation based on the criteria weights and categorized to "Unsuitable," "Moderately Suitable," "Suitable," and "Most Suitable" sites. The most suitable sites graded into candidate site 1, candidate site 2, candidate site 3, and candidate site 4, based on their available areas which are required to predict solid waste volume for at least the next 15 years. The areas of candidate sites are 15,040,400 m(2), 3,902,410 m(2), 2,586,130 m(2), and 730,462 m(2), respectively. The better landfill areas can be considered as backup landfill candidate sites. [GRAPHICS] .