Combining GIS Applications and Analytic Hierarchy Process Method for Landfill Siting in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq

and Analytic Hierarchy Process Method

for Landfill Siting in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq

Abstract The Governorate of Sulaymaniyah is located in the north of Iraq with a population of 856 990 in 2016. The process of selecting a landfill site is considered as a complicated task with several factors and regulations to take into account. Currently, there are no landfill sites in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate that Governorate that respect the prerequisites of the scientific and environmental criteria. Therefore, in this study, thirteen suitable criteria were selected. These criteria are: groundwater depth, urban area, rivers, villages, soil types, elevation, roads, slope, land use, archae-ological sites, power lines, oil and gas field, and geology. These criteria were used in the GIS (Geographic Information System), due to its high ability to manage and analyze various data. In addition, the AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) method was used to derive the weightings of criteria, through a matrix of pairwise compar-ison. In this work, the study site was classified into four different areas according to the Suitability Index for landfill sites, where they all satisfied the scientific and environmental criteria.

Keywords Landfill site

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K. Alkaradaghi· N. Al-Ansari (

B

Lulea University of Technology, 971 87 Lulea, Sweden e-mail:nadhir.alansari@ltu.se

K. Alkaradaghi· S. S. Ali

Department of Geology, College of Science, Sulaimani University, 460013 Sulaymaniyah, Iraq e-mail:salah.saeed@komar.edu.iq

K. Alkaradaghi

Kurdistan Institution for Strategic Studies and Scientific Research, 460013 Sulaymaniyah, Iraq S. S. Ali

Komar University of Science and Technology, 460013 Sulaymaniyah, Iraq Komar Research Center, 460013 Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

M. Ksibi et al. (eds.), Recent Advances in Environmental Science

from the Euro-Mediterranean and Surrounding Regions (2nd Edition), Environmental

Science and Engineering,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51210-1_287

1

Introduction

Solid waste management is considered one of the major problems in developing countries. Despite using many effective techniques such as re-using, recycling and incineration, the resulting materials from these processes still require landfills [1]. Currently, there is no landfill site within the study area that conforms to the scientific and environmental criteria. To tackle the problem of landfill siting, the Geographic Information System (GIS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method were combined to select candidate sites for a landfill [2–4]. In this study, AHP was used to determine the consistency of weighting for the thirteen selected criteria, through constructing a matrix of pairwise comparisons, while GIS was involved as an impor-tant technique for land use suitability analysis [5]. The main goal of this study is to classify the study area, according to the suitability index into priority zones for landfill sites that fulfill the environmental and scientific criteria.

2

Materials and Methods

Sulaymaniyah is a city in northwestern Iraq, located between latitude 35°450N and 36° 00N, with longitude 44° 450E and 45° 450E. The city is situated in a valley at the foot of the Goizha Mountain, and extends over an area of around 2400 km2_, with a population of about 856,990 inhabitants [6]. The solid waste generation rate is 1.12 kg/capita per day in 2016 [7], all types of waste are dumped without treatment in an open area of about 0.45 km2_{of the land overlooking the Tanjaro River [6].}

To prepare a layer map, spatial analysis tools in GIS were used for thirteen different criteria as layers covering the study area. To input the AHP model, as shown in Fig.1a, each criterion was categorized into sub-criteria and assigned a number from zero to ten giving a suitability rating value [8] based on the related legislation, restrictions, experiences, as well as literature reviews and scientific experts. To collect all infor-mation about the categories’ priority and important rating according to landfill site selection, pairwise comparison was implemented in the matrix for all criteria, the upper triangle above the diagonal matrix is filled with the values of comparison criteria, while the lower triangle of the matrix represents the reciprocal values of the upper diagonal [2–4].

The priority vector is determined by normalizing the eigenvalue to 1 [8], as follows: Pri = Egi n i=1Egi , (1)

A B C D E H a b I J K L F _M G

Fig. 1 a Criteria layers. b Suitability index map for the landfill site in the study area

where Egi = eigenvalue for the row i (Egi =



a11× a12× a13× a14· · · × a1n) 1

/n 

; n = number of elements in row i; aij

= the aliment of the row.

The maximum eigenvalue (λmax) is obtained from the following formula:

λmax = n  j=1  Wj m  i=1 ai j , (2)

where aij is the summation of the criteria in each column in the matrix and Wj is

the criterion weight value, which is equivalent to the priority vector in the matrix of decision [8]. The consistency index was calculated according to [8].

C I = (λmax − n)

n− 1 , (3)

where CI refers to the Consistency Index and n is the size or order of the matrix. The Consistency Ratio (CR) is obtained from [8].

C R = (C I )

(RI ). (4)

In this revise, the size of the matrix is 13 (m= n = 13), thus, the Random Index value (RI) is at 1.56 [8].

3

Results and Discussion

The matrix of pairwise comparisons for the thirteen criteria is equipped to compute the significance of weightings, using the AHP method as presented in Table1. The judgment contributed through favoring the importance intensity of one criterion over another, using a numerical scale of 9 points [6]. To calculate the priority vector (pri)

relative to weights of criteria, an eigenvalue for each criterion is normalized to 1. Checking the consistency between the weightings of criteria resulting from the matrix was done through estimating the Consistency Ratio (CR). The RI value presents the mean deviation of randomness for matrices with different sizes for different values [6]. In this revise,λmax = 13.51, CI = 0.04, RI13 = 1.56, and CR = 0.027. CR evaluates the AHP method validity in the model and should be less than 0.1. The obtained ratio indicates a reasonable consistency level in the pairwise comparison [6]. CI provides a measure of severity which will often turn out to be larger than the value describing a fully consistent matrix [9].

The layer map, as presented in Fig.1a, was entered on the Map Algebra tool of the GIS software throughout the summation of thirteen layers, multiplied by the respective weight of each criterion (Normalized Weight) which was calculated by the AHP method. The final map represents the suitability index value for a landfill siting model in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate, which was divided into four zones of suitability areas. These categories are: unsuitable areas, moderately suitable areas, suitable areas, and most suitable areas [3]. The area for each category was 75.53,

Table 1 Pairwise comparison matrix (criteria weights)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M NW A 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 8 9 0.211 B 0.50 1 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 8 0.149 C 0.50 1.00 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 8 0.149 D 0.33 0.50 0.5 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 7 0.029 E 0.25 0.33 0.33 0.50 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 5 6 0.099 F 0.25 0.33 0.33 0.50 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 5 6 0.099 G 0.20 0.25 0.25 0.33 0.50 0.50 1 1 2 2 3 4 5 0.065 H 0.20 0.25 0.25 0.33 0.50 0.50 1.00 1 2 2 3 4 5 0.065 I 0.17 0.20 0.20 0.25 0.33 0.33 0.50 0.50 1 1 2 3 4 0.015 J 0.17 0.20 0.20 0.25 0.33 0.33 0.50 0.50 1 1 2 3 4 0.043 K 0.14 0.17 0.17 0.20 0.25 0.25 0.33 0.33 0.50 0.50 1 2 3 0.043 L 0.13 0.14 0.14 0.17 0.20 0.20 0.25 0.25 0.33 0.33 0.50 1 2 0.021 M 0.11 0.13 0.13 0.14 0.17 0.17 0.20 0.20 0.25 0.25 0.33 0.5 1 0.012

A Urban area; B Villages; C Rivers; D Groundwater depth; E Slope; F Elevation; G Soil types; H

Geological formations; I Roads; J Oil and gas field; K Land use classification L Archaeological site; M Power lines. NW Normalized weight

554.45, 1352.92, and 417.27 Km2, respectively, within the total study area as shown in Fig.1b.

4

Conclusion and Final Remarks

This study utilized the AHP model and the GIS technique to assess the suitable landfill site selection in the studied area. Thirteen artefactual and environmental parameters were used to represent the suitability index map. Each pixel in the map gives information about the landfill site priority according to the criteria. The result demonstrates index values, which allow the classification into four zones: unsuitable, moderately suitable, suitable, and most suitable. These zones cover, respectively, an area of 75.53, 554.45, 1352.92, and 417.27 km2_{, or 3.15, 23.1, 56.37, and 17.38%} of the entire study area. There should be detailed and frequent monitoring in the suitable and most suitable zones in order to achieve an optimal solution for landfill site selection.

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