Future solid waste generation quantity determination and landfill site selection by using GIS and multi criteria decision analysis a case study of Sulaymaniyah city/Iraq

The City of Sulaymaniyah is situated in the north of Iraq. It covers a jurisdiction of around 1889.5-km2 and inhabitants population of 702882 people according to census taken in 2016. The process of landfill site selection is reflected as a complex work linked to various factors and regulations. Landfill technique is among the easiest and inexpensive management systems which are incorporated in sustainable solid waste management. The objective of the study was to select landfill site for the city that is environmentally sound, socially acceptable and economically feasible in Sulaymaniyah city. The city of Sulaymaniyah is located in a place there is no landfill site which meets both environmental and scientific standards. Thus, in this study sixteen criteria were designated. The criteria used in the process are: urban center, type of soil, elevation, archaeological sites, roads, slope, military area, water wells, rivers, villages, agricultural land use, roads, electrical power line, industrial sites, wind direction and airport. The above standards were applied in the Geographical Information System (GIS) that shows a high potential to manage and analyse various data. Moreover, the Multicriteria Decision Analysis methods AHP (analytical hierarchy process) method was used to derive the weightings of criteria through using a matrix of pair-wise comparison. After that the weighted linear combination (WLC) method was used to obtain the suitability index map for candidate landfill sites. Two suitable candidate sites for landfill were selected for Sulaymaniyah city, where all these sites satisfied the scientific and environmental criteria which were adopted in this study. The areas of the selected sites were adequate to accommodate solid waste from 2020 until 2032