convenient landfill site selection by using fuzzy logic and geographic information systems: a case study in bardaskan, east of iran

background due to burgeoning population, solid waste site selection is one of the most crucial issues in waste management system. regarding the complexity of waste management systems, the convenient solid waste site selection involves considering multiple alternative solutions and assessing different criteria. objectives the current study, aimed to select the fuzzy logic method as one of the most popular approaches in multi criteria decision analysis (mcda) to find a new sanitary landfill site through considering various criteria in bardaskan city, iran. materials and methods nine types of criteria divided into two main groups of ecological and economical criteria were involved to select the most convenient landfill site. a model based on the multi criteria evaluation techniques and combination of geographical information systems (gis) with fuzzy logic was employed. the esri arc gis 10 term system was utilized to manipulate and present spatial data. the fuzzy and operator was used to overlay all standardized maps. results the results of the current research proposed five locations with the fuzzy membership value of more than 0.9 as the best landfill sites in the study area. the sites were located in the north and north east of bardaskan city. the study demonstrated that 51.97 % of the study area was not suitable for landfill location whilst only 7.8 % was highly suitable for landfill siting. about 1956.61 hectares of the studied area was suitable for territorial landfill siting. conclusions the study results guided the municipality authorities to select the best landfill site among the candidate ones, and due to the broad spectrum of classifications, the output results can enable decision makers to make appropriate decisions to reduce the costs both in economical and bioenvironmental criteria.