Abstract:
Selecting appropriate site for landfill is one of the major problems for most of towns and
cities particularly in Ethiopia. This is due to the fact that the selection of suitable site
requires the consideration of many environmental and socio economic variables. The
study was initiated to map the potential suitable sites for solid waste landfill in Gondar
town using GIS and remote sensing technologies. To achieve the objectives of the study
GIS based multi criteria evaluation method was employed. To identify appropriate site
for landfills 9 criterias were considered. All the input map layers were first georeferenced and converted in raster format to make them ready for reclassification.
Afterwards they were reclassified based on their suitability level according to the
standards set by different researchers and the prevailing local conditions of the study
area. After reclassification weights for each criteria was assigned by following AHP
procedures using pairewise comparison matrix. After assigning weights for each
criterion they were combined together using weighted overlay tools and highly suitable
areas were identified. The final suitability map shows that about 4.5% of the study areas
were found to be highly suitable and 39.5% was unsuitable for landfill site. The identified
highly suitable sites were then reevaluated using criteria like distance from the center of
the city, distance from the nearby settlement and size of the area. To assign weights for
each candidate landfills Analytical Hierarchy Process was employed and highly suitable
sites among the 7 sites were identified. Accordingly Landfill site 7 which is found in south
east part of the town and landfill site 3 found in the north west of the town were selected
as the first and second most highly suitable sites for landfill respectively. These sites were
selected because they are large in size and are found in a compromise distance from the
city center as well as from residential areas. This study showed that GIS and remote
sensing technology are efficient and cost effective to select suitable sites for landfill in an
attempt to facilitate decision making process.
