Location of a municipal solid waste landfill using COCOSO, MAIRCA, MARCOS, and geographic information system (case study: Yazd)

Abstract Waste disposal is becoming a big global problem. Given the increasing human activities, solid waste causes serious damage to the ecosystem and human health. The illegal disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) in unacceptable places can cause serious damage to the environment. Therefore, this study was conducted to prioritize the located municipal solid waste landfill (MSWLF) and provide policies and methods to reduce this problem in 2021 in Yazd. Since location is a time-consuming and multi-faceted process. with the involvement of different parameters, the opinion of experts, information references and multi-purpose evaluation methods is required. Therefore, in this descriptive study, using the Delphi method, the criteria for locating arid regions were specified and to analyze the data collected by descriptive and inferential statistics, such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov, were used to determine the causal relationship between variables using the structural equation modeling by SPSS. Kendall's W was used to confirm the correlation and agreement of the opinions. Using the system Geographic information (GIS) and Boolean logic, a map of suitable MSWLF was prepared. COCOSO, MAIRCA and MARCOS were used as multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) to prioritize the most suitable MSWLF in Yazd. The results showed that complete agreement between the results of MARCOS, MAIRCA and COCOSO. The results of MCDM showed that A7 had better conditions for MSW disposal due to its features such as far from residential areas and agricultural lands, suitable slope and road. So that it was suggested as the most suitable site for the next 20 years as v in Yazd, and according to the study results on the small percentage of areas suitable for MSWLF in arid and desert regions, considering ZeroWaste strategies in the comprehensive waste management plans of arid and desert regions because of sensitive and fragile ecosystem.