Landfill Site Suitability Evaluation for Harar Town, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Solid waste dumping is a serious problem in urban areas as most solid wastes are not dumped in the suitable areas. Similar situation is observed in Harar town. The objective of this study was, therefore, to select potential suitable sites for solid waste dumping for the city of Harar. The study involves multi criteria evaluation method of weighted linear combination using GIS as a practical instrument to evaluate the suitability of landfill in the city. For the purpose of making decisions in landfill site selection, a hierarchy structural was formed and different parameters have been identified, including Slope, distance from water body, developed areas, sensitive areas, and roads and land use land cover. Initially, the rating method was used to evaluate each criterion individually. Then, the relative importance of criteria to each other was determined by an analytic hierarchy process. Simple Additive Weighting method was applied to evaluate the overall suitability. The result showed that 16.7% of the study area is highly suitable, 20.5% is moderately suitable and 33.2% and 29.6% respectively were least suitable and unsuitable for the purpose. Five candidate sites were identified and with more field investigation, one best suitable site was selected.