GIS-based Approach For Optimized Siting of Municipal Solid Waste Landfill

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Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx

www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman
Review
GIS-based approach for optimized siting of municipal solid

waste landll
V.R. Sumathi
a
a,*
, Usha Natesan a, Chinmoy Sarkar
Centre for Environmental Studies, Department of Civil Engineering, Anna University, Chennai 600 025, India
b
Centre for Pollution Control and Energy Technology, Pondicherry University, Pondicherry 605 014, India
Accepted 25 September 2007
Abstract
The exponential rise in the urban population of the developing countries in the past few decades and the resulting accelerated urbanization phenomenon has brought to the fore the necessity to develop environmentally sustainable and ecient waste management systems. Sanitary landll constitutes one of the primary methods of municipal solid waste disposal. Optimized siting decisions have gained
considerable importance in order to ensure minimum damage to the various environmental sub-components as well as reduce the stigma
associated with the residents living in its vicinity, thereby enhancing the overall sustainability associated with the life cycle of a landll.
This paper addresses the siting of a new landll using a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) and overlay analysis using a geographic information system (GIS). The proposed system can accommodate new information on the landll site selection by updating
its knowledge base. Several factors are considered in the siting process including geology, water supply resources, land use, sensitive sites,
air quality and groundwater quality. Weightings were assigned to each criterion depending upon their relative importance and ratings in
accordance with the relative magnitude of impact. The results from testing the system using dierent sites show the eectiveness of the
system in the selection process.
2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Landfill siting and the potential application of GIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Geographical extent and background information about the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Site selection criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1. Thematic maps preparation and GIS analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.1. Water bodies map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.2. Road network map. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.3. Land use map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.4. Sensitive sites map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.5. Infiltration map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.6. Geology map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.7. Elevation map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.8. Waste land map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.9. Groundwater table map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9442243232, +91 0413 2622105; fax: +91 0413 2243494.
E-mail address: sumiguna@gmail.com (V.R. Sumathi).
0956-053X/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2007.09.032
Please cite this article in press as: Sumathi, V.R. et al., GIS-based approach for optimized siting of municipal solid waste landll,
Waste Management (2007), doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2007.09.032
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V.R. Sumathi et al. / Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx
5.
4.1.10. Groundwater quality map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4.1.11. Air quality index map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.12. Buffer maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2. Importance ranking and rating for each criterion and the governing algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3. Identification of optimum site for landfill localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results and conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1. Introduction
In developing countries, the ever increasing human population and the associated anthropogenic activities have
accelerated the phenomenon of urbanization in the past
decade. In India, the rate of increase of urban population
shot from 11% in 1901 to about 26% in 2001. The census
of 2001 indicates the fact that presently 25.73% of the total
population resides in the urban centers, which has been
forecast to rise to 33% in the next 15 years. The rapid
growth rates of the cities, combined with their huge population base, has left many Indian cities lacking in basic
infrastructure services like water supply, sanitation and
sewerage, and solid waste management. With the rising
population and the associated unsustainable practices,
there has been an enormous increase in the quantum as
well as the in diversity of the solid waste being generated.
The problem of solid waste has assumed signicant dimension especially in the urban centers. Domestic, industrial
and other wastes, whether these are of low or medium level,
have become a perennial problem as they continue to cause
environmental pollution and degradation. Poor waste
management systems coupled with hot climatic conditions
results in increasing environmental problems with signicant local as well as global dimensions. The need of the
hour is to devise an ecient solid waste management system wherein decision-makers and waste management planners can deal with the increase in complexity, uncertainty,
multi-objectivity, and subjectivity associated with this
problem.
In spite of the increasing stress towards the waste reduction at the source, as well as recovery and recycling of the
solid waste, disposal of solid waste by landlling remain
the most commonly employed method. Landll incorporates an engineered method of disposal of solid waste on
land in a manner that minimizes environmental hazards
by spreading the solid waste in thin layers, compacting
the solid waste to the smallest practical volume and applying a cover at the end of the operating day. However, with
the increased population density and urban infrastructure,
several key considerations are required to be taken into
account to ensure its overall sustainability, especially those
associated with its economics, optimized siting and operation. The development of a municipal solid waste landll
requires the acquisition of large tracts of land and its suitable siting in a pre-existing urban matrix comprised of
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diverse competing land uses. Siting decisions are governed

by the pre-existing land use dynamics of the urban area as
well as the nature of potential interactions of the landll
with the pre-existing environmental, geologic, hydrological, and socio-economic parameters of the area. In the
domain of the science of solid waste management, identication of landll sites for solid waste disposal remains a
critical management issue wherein the selection should be
based on a number of considerations (Dipanjan et al.,
1997; CPCB, 1999). Siting a sanitary landll requires an
extensive evaluation process in order to identify the best
available disposal location. This location must comply with
the requirements of governmental regulations and at the
same time must minimize economic, environmental, health
and social costs. The site selection procedure, however,
should make maximum use of the available information
and ensure that the outcome of the process is acceptable
by most stakeholders. Therefore, landll siting generally
requires processing of a variety of spatial data.
The present study focuses on an optimized land use site
selection based on multi-criteria decision analysis and geographic information system based (GIS) overlay analysis.
The most appropriate landll site has been identied for
Pondicherry, a typical urbanizing city of India. Several
important factors and criteria were considered to arrive
at the optimum siting decision including the pre-existing
land use, location of sensitive sites, inltration, water
bodies, water supply sources, groundwater quality, air
quality, fault line and geology. Thematic maps of the
selected criteria were developed within the paradigm of
standard GIS software. Subsequently, weightings were
assigned to each criterion depending upon their relative
importance, and ratings in accordance with the relative
magnitude of impact. A GIS-based overlay analysis was
performed to identify the optimum site for the landll,
one which fullled all of the desired attributes.
2. Landll siting and the potential application of GIS
The evaluation of a new waste disposal site is a complicated process as it requires considerable expertise in diverse
social and environmental elds, such as soil science, engineering, hydro-geology, topography, land use, sociology,
and economics. Methods of evaluating new landll sites
take into consideration parameters such as distance to
roads, habitation, key infrastructure elements and the pro-
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pensity of soil to leach contaminants. Therefore, the siting

of a solid waste landll must also involve processing of a
signicant amount of spatial data, regulations and acceptance criteria, as well as an ecient correlation between
them. Some of the promising methods for landll site evaluation have been discussed by Gebhardt and Jankowski
(1987), Swallow et al. (1992), Chen and Kao (1997) and
Sasao (2004).
In recent years, GIS has emerged as a very important
tool for land use suitability analysis. GIS can recognize,
correlate and analyze the spatial relationship between
mapped phenomena, thereby enabling policy-makers to
link disparate sources of information, perform sophisticated analysis, visualize trends, project outcomes and strategize long-term planning goals (Malczewski, 2004). GIS
has often been employed for the siting and placement of
facilities (Church, 2002). The pioneering work in this eld
was initiated by McHarg (1969) who enunciated the basic
mapping ideas for site suitability analysis; especially those
that involve delineating the best route connecting two
points or identifying the best location for a specic function. His idea involved the preparation of thematic maps
and superimposing them on top of one another to view
the composite conguration so as to decide upon the most
suitable location in relation to the pre-existing set of interacting factors. With the evolution of GIS and the subsequent developments in the eld of location science,
considerable focus was placed upon its potential application for optimized siting. The earliest application of GIS
in this direction included the analysis conducted in the
1970s, especially those by Kiefer and Robbins (1973), Durfee (1974), Voelker (1976) and Dobson (1979). At about the
same time, Clark (1970), Helms and Clark (1971) and
Esmaili (1972) generated models to determine facility locations, capacities and expansion patterns. Several realistic
solid waste management models were formulated by applying and rening various optimization techniques. Fuertes
(1974) included social equity issues in choosing the site
for the facilities. The landll selection problems have often
been tackled using MCDA.
GIS has been found to play a signicant role in the
domain of siting of waste disposal sites. The potential
advantage of a GIS-based approach for siting arises from
the fact that it not only reduces time and cost of site selection, but also provides a digital data bank for long-term
monitoring of the site. GIS may also play a key role in
maintaining account data to facilitate collection operation
and provide customer service, analyzing optimal locations
for transfer stations, planning routes for vehicles transporting waste to transfer stations and from transfer stations to
landlls, as well as long-term monitoring of landlls. Other
advantages of applying GIS in the landll siting process
may include:
Selection of objective zone exclusion process according
to the set of provided screening criteria.
Zoning and buering.
Performing what if data analysis and investigating different potential scenarios related to population growth
and area development, as well as checking the importance of the various inuencing factors etc.
Handling and correlating large amounts of complex
geographical data
Visualization of the results through graphical representation.
Some of the important applications of GIS for identifying potential waste disposal sites include the ones by Muttiah et al. (1996), Charnpratheep et al. (1997), Kao (1996),
Kao et al. (1997), Lin and Kao (1998), Sarah and Susan
(2000), Leao et al. (2001) and Sadek et al. (2001).
Along with the proliferation of GIS technology, ever
since the 1950s, multiple criteria decision making methods
(MCDM) have evolved as a major tool to assist decision
makers with analyzing and solving multiple criteria decision problems. MCDM methods have been developed to
assist decision makers in either ranking a known set of
alternatives for a problem or making a choice among this
set while considering the conicting criteria. Generally,
the alternatives are compared against each other based
on how they perform relative to each criterion. Similarly,
some methods require comparison of the criteria to arrive
at the relative importance of each criterion. Thereafter,
MCDM methods utilize this information to assign ranks
to the alternatives. Some of the important methods of
MCDM have been summarized by Keeney and Raia
(1976), Zeleny (1982), Yoon and Hwang (1995), Gal
et al. (1999) and Figueira et al. (2005). In recent years,
the integration of MCDM techniques with GIS has considerably advanced the map overlay approaches to site suitability analysis (Carver, 1991; Banai, 1993; Eastman,
1997; Malczewski, 1999). A GIS-based MCDA integrates
and transforms spatial and aspatial data into a decision.
It involves the utilization of geographical data, the decision
makers preferences and the manipulation of data and preferences to arrive at uni-dimensional values of alternatives.
The siting of a new landll in a given urban matrix
requires a multitude of considerations. Consequently, it
may be considered as a rather complex multi-criteria decision making process involving numerous stakeholders and
public interest groups. Hipel (1982) proposed an earlier
version of multi-criteria modeling incorporating fuzzy set
theory to solve solid waste disposal problems in Canada.
MCDA have primarily been employed to solve site selection problems in solid waste management (Vuk et al.,
1991; Pereira and Duckstein, 1993; Hokkanen and Salminen, 1994, 1997). Kontos et al. (2005) described a methodology which comprises several methods from dierent
scientic elds such as multiple criteria analysis, geographic information systems, spatial analysis and spatial
statistics to evaluate the suitability of the study region in
order to optimally site a landll. Padmaja et al. (2006) identied a solid waste disposal site in Hyderabad city using an
analytical hierarchy process and GIS.
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An integrated approach incorporating the application of

GIS and MCDA methods have been employed for the suitability analysis of landlls in an urban matrix (Minor and
Jacobs, 1994; Kao and Lin, 1996; Siddiqui et al., 1996; Lin
and Kao, 1998; Allen et al., 2002; Kontos et al., 2005).
3. Geographical extent and background information about
the study
The Union Territory of Pondicherry comprises of four
interspersed geographical entities namely Pondicherry,
Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam, having a total area of
492 km2, located in southern India. The study area is the
district of Pondicherry which is the rst largest among
the four regions. It has an area of 293 km2 located between
latitudes 11 46 0 N and 12 03 0 N and longitudes 79 36 0
and 79 53 0 E. It is located along the Coramandal coast
of India, being limited on its east by the Bay of Bengal
and on the other three sides by the Cuddalore district of
Tamil Nadu State (Fig. 1). As per the census of India,
2001, the total population of the Pondicherry is 735,004
and it is rising at an annual rate of 2% (PPCC, 2005). It
is one of the fast growing urbanizing regions of southern
India with increasing investments being made for the
industrial and tourism sector. The urban population stands
at 505,715 which is 68.8% of the total population.
The built-up area of Pondicherry has shown a considerable growth in the past decade. The core urban area constituting the city occupies an area of 25.5 km2. Settlements
comprising of housing, towns, villages currently occupy
5.37%, while with plantations it occupies 21.30% of the
total geographical area. The areas occupied by industries
have also shown an increasing trend rising from 0.22 km2
in 1990 to 0.34 km2 in 1998 and 0.70 km2 in the year

2002. The region has shown all the potential attributes to
develop in to a major urban centre in the next few years.
A closer look at the scenario of municipal solid waste
generation indicates that major generation sources in
Pondicherry are households, markets, bus stands, hotels,
restaurants, marriage halls, Government oces, parks, cattle and hospitals. The total quantity of waste generated in
Pondicherry averages 300 tons/day. Average per capita
solid waste generation in Pondicherry town is approximately 450 g/day. A qualitative analysis indicates that the
solid waste generated in Pondicherry contains a fairly high
percentage of organic matter, as high as 7080% dry
weight, and has a low caloric value ranges between 1900
and 2600 kJ/kg. Currently, the management of solid waste
is being looked after by Local Administration Department
through municipalities. However, any organized method of
waste disposal is yet to be practiced; solid waste is disposed
of by open dumping. The present system of primary collection of garbage is through bins; about 500 dust bins are
kept in residential areas for the collection of wastes. However, no systematically organized method of waste disposal
is being practiced in the district.
In recent years, there has been consensus amongst the
decision makers and town planners towards the evolution
of mechanisms to reorganize the primary and secondary
waste collection system at Pondicherry, as well as to the
establishment of a centralized landll at an appropriate
location to cater to the needs of the entire district. The
present study has been an eort towards this direction, primarily focusing towards the selection of an optimized land
use site for the municipal solid waste landll. Multi-criteria
decision analysis has been employed to identify the key
Fig. 1. Study area map.
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governing factors aecting landll siting and subsequently

operating within the paradigm of GIS, an optimized site
was identied through an overlay analysis of the map layers characterizing the thematic factors.
4. Site selection criteria
Siting a sanitary landll requires an extensive evaluation
process in order to identify the optimum available disposal
location. This location must comply with the requirements
of the existing governmental regulations and at the same
time must minimize economic, environmental, health, and
social costs (Siddiqui et al., 1996). In assessing a site as a
possible location for solid waste landlling, many factors
could be considered (Savage et al., 1998; UNEP, 1994).
These factors may be presented in many ways; however,
the most useful way is the one that may be easily understood by the community (Tchobanoglous et al., 1993).
In the present study, the guidelines of Central Pollution
Control Board, India (CPCB, 2003) and that of Central
Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organization (CPHEEO, 2000) were considered for landll site identication. The selection of disposal sites was carried out
through a multi-level screening process. Subsequently, a
GIS-based constraint mapping was employed to eliminate
the environmentally unsuitable sites and to narrow down
the number of sites for further consideration. The list of
factors considered for selecting the disposal sites (Sumathi,
2006) are as indicated

lake and ponds,

rivers,
water supply sources,
groundwater table,
groundwater quality,
inltration,
air quality index,
geology,
fault line,
elevation,
land use,
habitation,
highways,
sensitive sites.
pretation and classication of the Indian Remote Sensing

satellite IRS1D imagery of Pondicherry of 22.8 m resolution. Subsequently, the thematic maps of habitation, sensitive sites and waste lands were derived from land use map
using standard procedures. Secondary data was collected
by ground truth and surveys conducted at the concerned
sites. The digitization and analysis of the thematic maps
were performed within the framework of the well known
desktop GIS software; Arc GIS Desktop 9.0 available at
the Department of Civil Engineering, Anna University.
Digital thematic maps were generated by employing the
following procedures:
Scanning of the available primary paper maps.
Geo referencing the scanned maps to earth coordinates.
On screen digitizing of the primary maps, thereby generating the digital thematic maps, each characterizing the
inuencing factor for landll site selection.
Locating the GPS coordinates and entering in the database as latitude and longitude.
Conversion of the latitude and longitude data into the
point data using the software.
Addition of the attribute data to the locations.
The air quality index map was generated from the air
quality data collected by the Department of Science, Technology and Environment, Pondicherry. Thereafter, the air
quality index (AQI) was computed and classied based
on the model prepared by Tiwari and Manzoor (1987).
The geometric mean of n no. of parameters was taken
as air quality index and then AQI was categorized into different classes as shown in Table 1.
h
i1=3
AQI Obs=StdSO2 Obs=StdNO2 Obs=StdSPM
100
Buer maps indicating regions encompassing appropriate
areas from lakes, ponds, rivers, water supply sources, habitation, highways and fault line were also generated to act
as areas of constraints, i.e., where a landll can not be
sited.
4.1.1. Water bodies map
A water bodies map (Fig. 2) indicating the ponds, lakes
and rivers located in the Pondicherry region was prepared
4.1. Thematic maps preparation and GIS analysis

The primary data sources for the study included the
toposheets of Pondicherry viz., 58 M/13, 58 M/9, 57 P/16
and 57 P/12 of the scale 1:50,000, which were used to prepare the base map for the study. Water bodies, road network and elevation maps were prepared based on the
Survey of India map by digitization. Geology, soil, fault
line, water supply sources, and groundwater maps were
collected from departments and subsequently digitized.
The land use map was generated through the image inter-
Table 1
Classication of air quality index
Air quality index
Description of ambient air quality
<10
1025
2550
5075
75100
100125
>125
Very clean
Clean
Fairly clean
Moderately polluted
Polluted
Heavily polluted
Severely polluted
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Fig. 2. Water bodies map.
4.1.2. Road network map

The road network map (Fig. 3) delineating the national
highways and other major roads in the Pondicherry region
was prepared. There are three NH 45 A and one NH 66
highways in the Pondicherry region.
It is the basic map of the study and helps in generating

many thematic maps required for overlay analysis. It was
developed by image interpretation and classication of
the IRS satellite imagery. The land use map indicates the
areas of settlements, double crop land, single crop land,
waste land, water bodies and rivers. The majority of the
regions occupied by double crops include cultivation of
paddy and groundnut while single crops include mainly
sugar cane and tapioca. Waste lands are scattered more
towards the northern part of the region. The majority of
the settlement areas occur along the coast.
4.1.3. Land use map

The land use map (Fig. 4) displays the land utilized by
the human and the natural cover in the Pondicherry region.
4.1.4. Sensitive sites map

A sensitive sites map (Fig. 5) was developed by the digitization of the major cultural, archaeological and histori-
through digitization of the Survey of India map. There are

two major lakes, viz. Bahour and Ousteri, which are used
for agriculture. The region is also drained by two rivers,
namely Sankaraparani and Pennaiyar, which along with
their tributaries drain into the Bay of Bengal.
Fig. 3. Road network map.
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Fig. 4. Land use map.
Fig. 5. Sensitive sites map.
cal sites; these sites are restricted from the development of

landll. About 280 years of French rule had left a unique
urban form within Boulevard town; the invaluable heritage
needs to be conserved in its special ambience and therefore
the Boulevard area has been identied as a heritage zone.
The Archaeological Survey of India has identied the following four temples in the Pondicherry region as national
monuments:
Sri Moolanathar Swami Temple at Bahour,
Sri Panchadeeshwara Swami Temple at Thiruvandarkoil,
Sri Varadharaja Perumal Temple at Thirubhuvanai and
Sri Thirukandeshwara Temple at Nallur.
Arikkamedu, an historical place and an ancient excavated site, is situated on the southern bank of the river Ari-
yankuppam and has also been included as a sensitive site.

The site was a port during the Chola and Pallava period
and trade ourished during that time with Greeks and
Romans.
4.1.5. Inltration map
An inltration map (Fig. 6) was also developed by taking into account the key soil types and their properties.
The inltration rate plays an important role in determining potential risk of contamination of the groundwater
and hence is a key criterion for the development of a
landll at a particular site. Depending on the inltration
rate, the region has been divided into high/medium/low
zones. The coastal area has been shown to possess a high
inltration rate. The central and southern part of the
region has thick clayey soils with predominantly low inltration rate.
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Fig. 6. Inltration map.
4.1.6. Geology map

The geology map (Fig. 7) shows that major part of the
region is alluvium. Thick alluvial deposits are built up
along the course of Penniar and Gingee rivers covering
three-fourths of the Pondicherry region. The thickness of
alluvium varies from 10 m to 55 m at dierent places. Other
geological structures viz., Basement, Cuddalore sandstone,
Limestone, Ottai clay and Vanur sand stone are present in
the northern part of the region.
4.1.7. Elevation map
Near the coastal side, the elevation is less than 10 m and
in the northern part of the region it ranges between 40 m
and 50 m (Fig. 8).
4.1.8. Waste land map
The waste land map (Fig. 9) depicts patches of land
spread throughout the entire region which are not under
productive use, owing to some natural and external causes
such as water logging, very high erosion, deposition of salts

etc. Such land can be prospective sites for a sanitary
landll.
4.1.9. Groundwater table map
The depth of the groundwater table plays an important
role in determining the contamination risk of groundwater.
It was found that the groundwater table is shallow (<5 m)
in the areas nearer to the coastal stretch. In the northwestern part of the region, the groundwater table ranges
between 5 m and 15 m and in the remaining part of the
region the groundwater table occurs at depths greater than
15 m.
4.1.10. Groundwater quality map
The groundwater quality map determines the extent of
pollution in the resources. To assess the groundwater quality, TDS was considered. The total dissolved solids concentration is less than 500 mg/l (Fig. 10) in most of the region.
Fig. 7. Geology map.
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Fig. 8. Elevation map.
Fig. 9. Waste land map.
Fig. 10. Groundwater quality map.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
10
In the southern part of the region nearer to the coast, total

dissolved solids are above 2500 mg/l.
4.1.11. Air quality index map
Assessment of air quality reveals that in the major portion of the study area, SO2 concentration is less than 50 lg/
m3 and in very few patches the concentration is between 50
and 80 lg/m3. NOx concentration in the Pondicherry
region is less than 50 lg/m3. Except for a small area in
the northern part, where SPM concentration >200 lg/m3,
the majority of the study area has an SPM concentration
in the range between 100 and 200 lg/m3. A composite air
quality index map was developed (Fig. 11) and it shows
that the Boulevard area is comprised of polluted, moderately polluted, heavily polluted and severely polluted areas.
4.1.12. Buer maps
Maps with buer zones for ponds, rivers, roads, habitation, water supply sources and fault lines exhibit the permissible distance beyond which the landll can be sited for
various criteria using the buer option in ArcGIS, i.e., the
areas within the buer are unsuitable for landll development for solid waste disposal. They were generated on the
basis of pre-existing published landll criteria, existing standards and regulatory requirements, as well as the prevailing
local conditions. For example, to generate the buer for rivers, the three rivers in the study area viz., Penniar, Chunnambar and Ariankuppam, were considered and a buer
distance of 100 m was applied around each of them. Similarly, buer zones for ponds, rivers, roads, habitation, water
supply source and fault lines were created at a distance of
200 m, 100 m, 200 m, 500 m, 500 m and 500 m, respectively.
4.2. Importance ranking and rating for each criterion and the
governing algorithm
After the preparation of thematic maps characterizing
the inuencing factors and the preparation of the GIS
database for landll siting, the next step involved the identication, importance ranking of each of the inuencing
factors, and the preparation of a relative rating scheme
for each inuencing factor based on the relative magnitude
of impact. In the present study, the technique of Delphi
was employed for identifying the key governing criteria
for landll site selection. A set of questionnaires was prepared and sent to the policy makers of key government
departments of Pondicherry.
Based upon the inputs of the key policy makers of the
dierent sections of the local government, guidelines of
Central Pollution Control Board, India (CPCB, 2003)
and that of the Central Public Health and Environmental
Engineering Organization (CPHEEO, 2000), as well as
the review of the scientic literature on previous work conducted, four categories of criteria were identied, namely,
the land use criteria, hydro-geologic criteria, air quality criteria and the constraint parameterization. Each category
was further divided into sub-categories. A sequential hierarchy of the multi-criteria problem was developed; analytic
hierarchy process was employed wherein a consistent
weight set was extracted through the pair-wise comparison
by decision makers in their consideration of each factor
against one another. Feedback from a team with expertise
in multi-disciplinary elds of local environmental management of the Pondicherry was sought in the process. Associated with each thematic map (TM) characterizing a given
criteria, once the importance weighting (Wc) of the criteria,
as well as the ratings (Rc), were associated with each criterion depending on their relative magnitude, a sub-index
score (Isub) for that particular criteria was evaluated. The
same process was followed for each of the sets of sub-categories of criteria. A weighted sum aggregation function
was employed to arrive at a Composite Suitability Index
(CSI).
n
n
X
X
CSI
I sub TM
W c Rc TM
c1
c1
Fig. 11. Air quality index map.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
O
P
Land use criterion
T
I
M
I
Z
E
D
L
A
N
D
F
I
L
L
S
I
T
I
N
G
Hydro-geologic criterion
Air quality criterion
Proximity to water body
Evaluate important weighting (WW), ratings (RW) at distances of 0-200m,

200-400m, 400-600m, 600-800m, and 800-1000m
Proximity to road network
Evaluate important weighting (WR), ratings (RR) at distances of 0-200m,

200-300m, 300-400m, 400-500m, and 500-1000m
Proximity to agricultural land
Evaluate important weighting (WAg), ratings (RAg) at distances of 0-200m,

200-300m, 300-400m, 400-500m, and 500-1000m
Proximity to settlement
Evaluate important weighting (Wsettl), ratings (Rsettl) at distances of 0200m, 200-300m, 300-400m, 400-500m, and 500-1000m
Proximity to wasteland
Evaluate important weighting (Wwaste), ratings (Rwaste) at distances of 0-200m,

200-300m, 300-400m, 400-500m, and 500-1000m
Proximity to sensitive sites
Evaluate important weighting (Wsen), ratings (Rsen) at distances of 0-100m,

100-200m, 200-300m, 300-400m, and 400-500m
Proximity to water table
Evaluate important weighting (WWT), ratings (RWT) at distances of 0-5m, 515m, and >15m
Degree of elevation
Evaluate important weighting (Wel), ratings (Rel) at 0-10m, 10-20m, 20-30m,

30-40m, and 40-50m
Nature of geologic strata
Evaluate important weighting (Wgeo), ratings (Rgeo) according to the nature of

the geologic strata
Degree of infiltration
Evaluate important weighting (Winfil), ratings (Rinfil) according to the

infiltration levels very high, high, medium, low
Nature of groundwater quality
Evaluate important weighting (WGW), ratings (RGW) according to the TDS

levels <500, 500-1000, 1000-1500, 1500-2000, 2000-2500, >2500 mg/l
Air quality index
11
Index score for Land use criteria (ILU) =

(Isub)W+(Isub)R+(Isub)Ag+(Isub)settl+(Isub)waste+(Isub)sen
Index score for Hydro-geologic criteria (IHG) =

(Isub)WT+(Isub)el+(Isub)geo+(Isub)infil+(Isub)GW
Evaluate the AQI score
Constraint parameterization
Identification of key features indicating constraints and

generation of thematic buffer maps
GIS overlay of buffer maps to identify areas of constraints
Fig. 12. The hierarchy of the multi-criteria approach employed to evaluate the composite suitability index for optimized landll siting.
The process of employing weights and ratings to each set of

criteria has been indicated in Fig. 12.
The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) developed by
Saaty (1980) has been employed to derive the relative
importance weighting of each criterion. Pairwise comparisons were conducted among the criteria to determine the
relative importance of each criterion among others. A comparison matrix among the criteria was developed, which
was subsequently used to compute an eigen vector, which
ultimately represented the ranking of the criteria. For the
calculation of ratings associated with each criterion, a pair
wise comparison of alternatives on the basis of each criterion was conducted. An intensity of importance was associated for all possible alternatives and a comparison
matrix arrived at by repeating the process for each criterion. Using the comparison matrix among the alternatives
and the information on the ranking of the criteria, AHP
generated an overall ranking of the solutions. The alternative with the highest eigenvector value was considered to be
the rst choice.
4.3. Identication of optimum site for landll localization
The overall algorithms employed for the optimized siting of a landll site has been indicated in Fig. 13. Firstly,
key sets of criteria which govern the siting of a landll
are identied. They have been broadly categorized into
land use criteria, hydro-geologic criteria and air quality cri-
teria. Another important factor is the constraint parameterization indicating the areas of constraint in the given
land use conguration where a landll cannot be developed. This is based on a set of buer zones constituted
on the basis of some key inuencing factors. The buers
were set in ArcGIS based upon the existing scientic
knowledge of the cause-impact relationship of a specic
inuencing factor upon a receptor. The next step involves
the development of a GIS database for the above mentioned governing criteria. Separate thematic maps characterizing each sub-criteria are developed and the attribute
data associated. In the study, the land use map constitutes
the base map. In the next step, all of the buer maps are
overlaid on the base map and the regions of constraint
where a landll cannot be constructed are identied. Subsequently, each of the thematic maps characterizing a governing criterion is overlaid on the base map. For each pixel
i, j of the base map, the cumulative suitability index (CSI)
for landll siting is evaluated through the aggregation of
the sub-index values calculated from each of the overlaid
thematic maps characterizing a governing criterion. The
multi-criteria analysis was performed using the Spatial
Modeler of ArcGIS. Thereafter, the algorithm performs a
GIS-based constraint mapping technique to eliminate the
potentially unsuitable sites. The algorithm thus ends with
a nal map indicating the best suitable sites for the development of a municipal solid waste landll, based on a set
of identied key criteria.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
12
Identify the set of key criteria for landfill siting
Start
Land use criteria:

Distance to a surface water body
(ponds, rivers)
Distance to a road network
Distance to agricultural land
Distance to settlement
Distance to wasteland
Distance to sensitive sites
Hydro-geologic criteria
Level of infiltration
Geologic strata
Degree of slope and elevation
Depth of the groundwater table
Nature of groundwater quality (TDS
conc.)
Constraints Parameterization
Air quality criteria
Nature of ambient air
quality
On-screen digitization &

generation of thematic maps
characterizing the identified
criteria
Primary data sources
Toposheets
Available paper maps
Geo-referencing to
earth coordinates
system
Scanning
Secondary data sources

Ground truth studies
Locating coordinates
Primary data sources

IRS 1D satellite image
Image interpretation,
classification and generation
of the primary land use
map
200 m buffer for ponds

100 m buffer for rivers
200 m buffer for major highways
500 m buffer for areas of habitation
500 m buffer for water supply sources
500 m buffer for major fault lines
Development of GIS database

for municipal landfill siting
comprising of following layers:
Land use layer (base map)
Road network map layer
Water bodies map layer
Sensitive sites map layer
Waste land map layer
Infiltration map layer
Geologic map layer
Elevation map layer
Groundwater table map layer
Groundwater quality map layer
Air quality index layer
Set of layers indicating the
various constraints (Buffer
layer)
Development of a GIS database for optimized landfill siting
For each thematic map (TM) characterizing an identified criterion c:

Associate Importance Weighting based on the significance of the
criterion (Wc)
Decide upon the Rating Score based on the range of magnitude of
the parameter value (Rc)
Aggregate the sub-index score by simple additive weighing
ISub = (Wc. Rc)TM
No
Overlay the generated buffer

maps to identify the sites
where the constraints
parameterization may be
employed sites where the
siting of landfill is not
permissible
Have the Importance

Weighting and Rating
Score been decided
upon for all of the
thematic criteria?
Yes
GIS analysis through

overlaying of the various
thematic layers
characterizing a set of
identified criteria
Stop
Identification of
optimized site for
land use siting
GIS-based constraint mapping

approach to eliminate the
environmentally unsuitable sites
For each pixel (i, j) of the base map,

calculate the sub-index scores
associated with each thematic criteria
and thereby evaluate the Composite
Suitability Index of that pixel
CSU = ((Wc. Rc)TM
Evaluate the Composite

Suitability Index scores
for all of the pixels in the
base map
GIS-based multi-criteria analysis for optimized landfill site selection
Fig. 13. Algorithm for the identication of the optimized landll site in an urban location.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
13
Fig. 14. Optimum sites for solid waste disposal.
In this study, the Pondicherry region has been taken as

the study area. The thematic maps were generated, overlaid
upon one another and the above proposed algorithm was
run on them and GIS based analysis performed. The
GIS-based constraint mapping technique was employed
for the entire study area and subsequently 17 potential sites
were identied for landll development on the basis of the
selected criteria. Thereafter, the immediate local conditions
prevailing at the present moment were assessed and the 17
potential sites were further screened to 3 sites that were the
most optimum ones. Most of the sites were eliminated due
to their proximity to high tension power lines, location in
dip zone, location near upcoming habitation areas, a
school zone and away from the municipal boundary. The
3 most optimum sites have been indicated in Fig. 14.
Table 2
Identied sites for landll
5. Results and conclusion

This paper examines an approach for identifying the
optimum site for the construction of a landll in a typically
urbanizing city. A multi-criteria approach was employed in
conjunction with GIS-based overlay analysis to identify the
most suitable site for landll development in the Pondicherry region. The study was based upon a set of key criteria, which were selected based upon the already available
knowledge from research literature as well as the pre-existing local level factors of the area. A set of 17 potential sites
were identied (Table 2) in the rst level of analysis while
subsequent screening and renement on the basis of existing microscopic factors led to optimized selection of the 3
most suitable sites for landll construction. The sites were
ranked on the basis of area availability. Sites 1, 5, and 13
covering areas of 0.36 km2, 0.11 km2 and 0.06 km2, respectively, were chosen as the most suitable for landll construction. They are located in areas comprised of
wasteland, the physicochemical characteristic of the soil
are optimum, and they also fulll all of the selected criteria.
Site
no.
Rank
1
2
3
1
2
3
5
6
5
6
7
8
7
8
10
10
11
11
12
12
13
14
15
13
14
15
16
16
17
17
Description of the site
Area
in km2
Waste land, large area and soil suitability

Area located in the path of HT power lines
Land located in the dip zone of main water
source of Pondicherry
Land situated around the new habitation
area
Waste land and soil suitability
Site not recommended by the geologists due
to sandy soil
Land situated around the new school zone
Located 10 km or more away from the
municipal boundary
area
municipal boundary
Waste land and soil suitability
Small single site
area
municipal boundary
0.36
0.19
0.14
0.12
0.11
0.09
0.08
0.08
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.06
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.04
0.04
Site 2 was eliminated from consideration, as it is located in

the path of high-tension power lines. Sites 3, 8, 12 and 15
were also eliminated, as they are located in the dip zone
of main water source of Pondicherry. Although sites 4,
10 and 16 satised the selected criteria, they were also
screened out as they are located where new habitation areas
have been proposed according to the Pondicherry Master
Plan. Site 6 has sandy soil and a high inltration rate, while
ARTICLE IN PRESS
14
site 7 is located in the school zone; hence neither was considered suitable. Sites 9, 11 and 17 were also eliminated as
they are located too far from the Pondicherry municipal
boundary (more than 10 km).
The superiority of the proposed approach stems from its
inherent exibility in its application to dierent sites with
diverse local conditions. Although the basic factors to be
assessed for a landll development are universally the
same, dierent sites may have dierent sets of local conditions. Hence the sets of important criteria, as well as the
important ranking and weighting values, have to be optimized on the basis of site-specic conditions. The governing algorithm was suitably calibrated for the Pondicherry
region through the iterations of the weightings and ratings
in AHP based on inputs from local policy makers. Expert
opinions from key local government policy makers were
gathered through Delphi for inputs to the model.
Furthermore, the uniqueness of the present approach
stems from the fact that the environmental factors were
deemed as the primary governing factors in the study. It
has been identied that the impacts produced to the neighboring environment as a result of development of a sanitary landll causes secondary impacts upon the health
and socio-economic conditions. A detailed study of the
pre-existing groundwater and air quality was conducted
in this regard. In addition, pre-existing land uses and
demographics was also given due importance.
Acknowledgement
The author (VRS) wishes to acknowledge the aid of the
academic research infrastructure available at the Centre for
Environmental Studies, Department of Civil Engineering,
Anna University for the research work conducted.
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Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx

GIS-based approach for optimized siting of municipal solid

, Usha Natesan a, Chinmoy Sarkar

V.R. Sumathi et al. / Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx

4.1.10. Groundwater quality map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

diverse competing land uses. Siting decisions are governed

pensity of soil to leach contaminants. Therefore, the siting

V.R. Sumathi et al. / Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx

An integrated approach incorporating the application of

in 1990 to 0.34 km2 in 1998 and 0.70 km2 in the year

Fig. 1. Study area map.

governing factors aecting landll siting and subsequently

lake and ponds,

pretation and classication of the Indian Remote Sensing

4.1. Thematic maps preparation and GIS analysis

Description of ambient air quality

V.R. Sumathi et al. / Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx

Fig. 2. Water bodies map.

4.1.2. Road network map

It is the basic map of the study and helps in generating

4.1.3. Land use map

4.1.4. Sensitive sites map

through digitization of the Survey of India map. There are

Fig. 3. Road network map.

Fig. 4. Land use map.

Fig. 5. Sensitive sites map.

cal sites; these sites are restricted from the development of

yankuppam and has also been included as a sensitive site.

V.R. Sumathi et al. / Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx

Fig. 6. Inltration map.

4.1.6. Geology map

such as water logging, very high erosion, deposition of salts

Fig. 7. Geology map.

Fig. 8. Elevation map.

Fig. 9. Waste land map.

Fig. 10. Groundwater quality map.

V.R. Sumathi et al. / Waste Management xxx (2007) xxxxxx

In the southern part of the region nearer to the coast, total

Fig. 11. Air quality index map.

Air quality criterion

Proximity to water body

Evaluate important weighting (WW), ratings (RW) at distances of 0-200m,

Proximity to road network

Evaluate important weighting (WR), ratings (RR) at distances of 0-200m,

Proximity to agricultural land

Evaluate important weighting (WAg), ratings (RAg) at distances of 0-200m,

Evaluate important weighting (Wwaste), ratings (Rwaste) at distances of 0-200m,

Proximity to sensitive sites

Evaluate important weighting (Wsen), ratings (Rsen) at distances of 0-100m,

Proximity to water table

Evaluate important weighting (Wel), ratings (Rel) at 0-10m, 10-20m, 20-30m,

Nature of geologic strata

Evaluate important weighting (Wgeo), ratings (Rgeo) according to the nature of

Evaluate important weighting (Winfil), ratings (Rinfil) according to the

Nature of groundwater quality

Evaluate important weighting (WGW), ratings (RGW) according to the TDS

Air quality index

Index score for Land use criteria (ILU) =

Index score for Hydro-geologic criteria (IHG) =

Evaluate the AQI score

Identification of key features indicating constraints and