Identification and evaluation of landfill site selection criteria using a hybrid Fuzzy Delphi, Fuzzy AHP and DEMATEL based approach

Landfill site selection is a complex multi-criteria and time consuming process. The present study aims to identify, evaluate, and prioritize the landfill site selection criteria and finally study the relationship between them, and the degree to which they affect or are affected by one another. In the first stage, experts’ opinion was sought to select the relevant criteria and fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) was employed to obtain the critical factors for selection of landfill sites. Next, the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was used to make pairwise comparisons of selected criteria by domain experts for assigning weights to the decision criteria and to calculate their importance degree. Finally, by considering the interrelationships among the criteria, Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique was applied to deal with the importance and causal relationships among them, and to recognize the influential criteria of landfill site selection. Obtained results show that, the criteria of sensitive area and intra-municipality are revealed to be the top two significant influences in selecting landfill sites. By identifying the relevant criteria, the structures and interrelationships, this study can offer an insight for decision makers to understand cause-effect relationships and allow to select suitable sites. © 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.