Urban landfill investigation for managing the negative impact of solid waste on environment using geospatial technique. A case study of Assosa town, Ethiopia

Selecting a suitable landfill site is one of a primary concern of city administers and municipalities. This study presents an integrative approach for the identification of potential alternative landfill site for Assosa town. Geographic information system (GIS) and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) method were employed based on eight suitable environmental and socioeconomic landfill siting criteria. These criteria were settlement areas, roads, groundwater well, airport, socially valuable areas, drainage, land use/cover and slope. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to weight and standardized each criterion. All the criteria layers were standardized as unsuitable, less suitable, moderately suitable, highly suitable and overlayed in GIS environment to determine the suitability index for landfill sitting. The results of suitability map shows that 5.79% of the study area is highly suitable for landfill site. The result of this study could be used as a preliminary input for further detailed study and the information supports concerned authorities to improve solid waste management of the area.