Urban and rural waste and residue are among the factors contributing to pollution and environmental degradation resulting from human activities. With the rapid growth of urban and rural areas, the available landfill sites have become insufficient. Therefore, optimal location analysis for identifying areas suitable for landfilling and waste disposal is essential. Given that Zanjan County in northwestern Iran is also facing this issue, this study aims to identify areas suitable to landfilling and waste accumulation in the county. In this research, MODIS, CHIRPS, and the Google Earth images, a 1:100,000 geological map of the area, a 30 m SRTM DEM, and various digital layers were utilized as the primary data sources. The main tools employed in this research were ArcGIS, TerrSet, and Google Earth Engine. Using 12 natural and human parameters along with the relative weight coefficient and OWA methods, the areas suitable for landfilling and waste disposal in Zanjan County were identified. According to the results, 3,237 km2 of Zanjan County’s area (equivalent to 50% of the county’s total area) are classified as prohibited zones due to their high sensitivity to degradation and vulnerability, and therefore should not be used for establishing landfills or waste disposal sites. Additionally, 1,798 km2 of the county’s area (equivalent to 27.8% of the total area), which mainly includes heights and slopes, have low to very low potential for landfilling or waste disposal. Considering the findings, a significant portion of the county’s area is unsuitable for landfilling or waste disposal, and as a result, only 476 km2 of the county’s area (equivalent to 7.4% of the total area) is suitable for such purposes.
Hosseini et al. (Mon,) studied this question.