The use of fuzzy logic spatial modeling via GIS for landfill site selection (case study: Rudbar-Iran)

One of the most crucial parts of the waste management is to choose an appropriate method for site selection. Selecting an appropriate site for sanitary landfill is a complicated task regarding consideration of spatial and non-spatial factors such as social, economic, technical, and environmental issues which requires an applicable method that should be able to make a good relationship between aforementioned conditions and prediction of further situations. In line with that issue, the present study has used fuzzy logic spatial modeling to select the best location and prioritize prone areas for constructing the landfills in a region with harsh morphological situation and sensitive environment such as Rudbar city. This study was conducted in three stages. At the first stage, after combining the maps based on restriction parameters, improper areas have been eliminated. At the second stage, by considering the direction of dominant wind and proper area for construction of landfill in a 20-year perspective in understudied area with more than 35 hectares and not located in the direction of dominant wind, had been identified as suitable areas for constructing landfills. At the last stage, the selected areas in previous stage have been evaluated by fuzzy method and they have been compared with each other based on the considered criteria. Eventually, the prioritization of prone areas has been evaluated based on qualitative classification and they were divided into 5 classes as: excellent, very good, good, average, and weak. Based on the obtained results, 0.41% of the region was classified as weak class, 0.89% as average class, 1.07% as good class, 0.70% as very good class, and 0.76% as excellent class in terms of appropriateness for constructing landfill.