Site Suitability Analysis and Route Optimization for Municipal Solid Waste Management using Multi Criteria Decision Making and GIS

Abstract

An increase in population accompanied by unsustainable means of consumption and development has increased the urban socio-environmental problems worldwide, with India facing the wrath due to a large amount of solid waste being generated and dumped across its cities. Open dumping of solid waste across many Indian cities reflects the status of environmental infrastructures, government s inclination, societal mindsets, and common responsibilities of Indian citizens. Engineered sanitary landfill sites are negligible even in metropolitan cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, thus smaller cities like Ranchi (State capital of Jharkhand) have none. Ranchi city is selected as one among the Smart City project and it is initiated by the Government of India and Solid Waste Management, and it is one of the important aspects of this project. Being a developing city Ranchi is witnessing rapid population growth due to industrial growth and urbanization resulting in huge production of solid waste. Thus, the two objectives of the research are to assist the Ranchi Municipal Corporation in waste management through 1). A suitable site selection for landfill sites, and 2). Waste transfer route optimization under limited availability of data. The output of the thesis will be submitted to Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) for further action. The thesis is divided into 6 Chapters, where Chapter 1-Introduction frames the basis of the research and objectives. Chapter 2- Literature Review helps to highlight some of the important ongoing work in this field of research. newlineChapter 3- Materials and Methodology discusses the primary and secondary data that is being used in the study. ASTER GDEM data is used for slope map generation in the ARCGIS 10 platform. A soil map is generated using secondary Soil Data obtained from the National Bureau of Soil Science, Nagpur. Ground water table data is obtained from Central Ground Water Board and Central Water Commission offices, Ranchi. Land use, Land cover maps, and buffer maps are generated in ARC GIS 10