Landfill site selection using analytical hierarchy process and GIS: a case study in Al-Zubair district, Basrah, Iraq

الملخص

Al-Zubair district is located in the southwestern part of Basrah governorate and is considered the largest region administratively. Due to the rapid urbanization, rapid population growth, and the high rate of waste productivity in Al-Zubair district, there is a need for a sanitary landfill to accommodate the produced solid waste and avoid any potential environmental problems. For this reason, an attempt has been conducted to find the best location for the sanitary landfill in Al-Zubair district to solve the waste problem scientifically, thus, a total of nine influencing criteria were adopted in this study (water surface, agricultural lands, residential areas, soil types, slope, roads, railways, power lines, and the oil fields criteria) then processed using the Geographical Information System (GIS) to generate the map of suitability index and find the most candidate sites for the landfill based on the weights of criteria that derived from the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). This study expected that the cumulative volume of solid waste through (2025-2050) is about 18658259 m³, and the required area for the landfill to accommodate this volume must be at least about 9.33 km². The most suitable candidate site to hold the cumulative volume of solid waste was identified by this study in the middle of Al-Zubair district, complying with all the requirements of the best location for the landfill, with an area of 124.63 km² revealing the ability of this site to accommodate the cumulative produced solid waste even after 2050 sustainably.