Comparison of Landfill Site Suitability Assessment Using Ahp and Fuzzy Ahp Methods

Abstract

Landfill site selection is a multi-criteria decision problem and has strategic value for various countries. The conventional method for landfill site selection is not enough to address the vague nature of linguistic assessment. An integrated Fuzzy AHP method was used to resolve this issue. Suitability maps produced by conventional Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and integrated Fuzzy AHP methods were compared and validated, which adds a new dimension in the waste management field. Various environmental, socio-economic, and infrastructure factors were used as predictors, which included groundwater level, soil type, slope, land cover, distance to settlements, railways, roads, surface water sources, airport, power lines, wells, and protected areas. Relative Operation Characteristic (ROC) analyses gave results of 0.77 and 0.86 for the suitability maps of AHP and Fuzzy AHP, respectively. The landfill site suitability maps produced from this study could help urban planners, engineers, decision-makers, and land-use developers to make suitable decisions. Furthermore, the resulted integrated model showed the best suitability that could be implemented to resolve the fundamental landfill siting problems in other cities of Pakistan.