Selection of Landfill Sites for Solid Waste Treatment in Damaturu Town-Using GIS Techniques

Landfill has been recognized as the cheapest form for the final disposal of municipal solid waste and as such has been the most used method in the world. However, siting landfill is an extremely complex task mainly due to the fact that the identification and selection process involves many factors and strict regulations. For proper identification and selection of appropriate sites for landfills careful and systematic procedures need to be adopted and followed. Wrong siting of landfill many result in environmental degradation and often time public opposition. In this study, attempts have been made to determine sites that are appropriate for landfill siting in Damaturu town Nigeria, by combining geographic information system (GIS) and a multi-criteria decision making method (MCDM) known as the analytic network process (ANP) for the determination of the relative importance weights of factors (criteria). The land suitability output is presented from less suitable to the most suitable areas. The final map produced show areas that are suitable for landfill siting. Based on the analysis fourteen sites were identified to fulfill the required criteria, however, only seven met the land availability criteria of twenty hectares and above. The results showed the efficacy of GIS and multi-criteria decision making method in decision making.