Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389

DOI 10.1007/s12665-012-1836-3

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Minimization of environmental risk of landfill site using fuzzy

logic, analytical hierarchy process, and weighted linear
combination methodology in a geographic information system
environment
Abdelwaheb Aydi • Moncef Zairi • Hamed Ben Dhia

Received: 20 January 2012 / Accepted: 9 July 2012 / Published online: 25 July 2012
 Springer-Verlag 2012

Abstract This paper presents a GIS-based multi-criteria Abbreviations

site selection for municipal solid waste landfilling in Ari- GIS Geographic information systems
ana Region, Tunisia. Based on the regional characteristics, AHP Analytical hierarchy process
literature related to disposal sites and waste management, MCE Multi-criteria evaluation
local expert, data availability and assessments via ques- CR Consistency ratio
tionnaires, 15 constraints, and 5 factors were built in the WLC Weighted linear combination
hierarchical structure for landfill suitability by multi-cri-
teria evaluation. The factors are divided into environmental
and socio-economic groups. The methodology is used for
preliminary assessment of the 20-year most useful lifetime
Introduction
suitable landfilling sites by combining fuzzy set theory,
weighted linear combination (WLC) and analytic hierarchy
Municipal solid waste (MSW) management is one of the
process (AHP) in a GIS environment. The criteria stan-
major problems facing city planners worldwide. The
dardization is undertaken by application of different fuzzy
problem is especially severe in developing countries where
membership functions. The fuzzy membership functions
urbanization, poor planning, and the lack of adequate
shape and their control points are chosen through assess-
resources contribute to the poor state of solid waste man-
ment of expert opinion. The weightings of each selection
agement practices. The improper management of MSW
criterion are assigned depending on the relative importance
may cause a serious threat to human health and environ-
using the AHP methodology. The WLC approach is
ment including diseases transmission, fire hazards, odor
applied for alternative landfill sites prioritization. The
nuisance, atmospheric and water pollutions, aesthetic nui-
results of this study showed five potential candidate sites,
sance, and economic losses (Abu-Qdais and Abu-Qudais
which are generated when the environmental factors are
2000; Kontos et al. 2003). As sanitary landfilling is an
valued higher than socio-economic factors. These sites are
inevitable part of MSW management system (Tchobanog-
ranked in descending order using the ELECTRE III
lous et al. 1993), appropriate landfill site selection can
method. However, the final decision will require further
reduce the risk of contamination to the surrounding envi-
detailed geotechnical and hydrogeological analyses toward
ronment. However, landfills have become more difficult to
the protection of groundwater as well as surface water.
site because of their increasing cost, community opposition
to landfill siting in their vicinity, and more restrictive
Keywords MSW landfill  Multi-criteria evaluation 
regulations regarding the siting and operation of landfills
Analytical hierarchy process  ELECTRE III
(Mahini and Gholamalifard 2006).
Landfill site selection can generally be divided into two
A. Aydi  M. Zairi (&)  H. B. Dhia main steps: the identification of potential sites through
Laboratory of Water, Energy and Environment, preliminary screening and the evaluation of their suit-
National School of Engineers, PB 1173, 3038 Sfax, Tunisia ability (Chang et al. 2008). Geographic information
e-mail: moncef.zairi@enis.rnu.tn

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1376 Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389

systems (GIS) approaches are popular for this kind of Siting methodology
preliminary studies due to their ability to manage large
volume of spatial data from a variety of sources (Kontos A substantial multi-disciplinary evaluation process with
et al. 2003). In the last few decades, GIS have been multiple sets of criteria is used to identify the best available
increasingly used as an important spatial decision support locations for a new MSW landfill in Ariana Region. The
system for evaluating suitable landfill locations (Done- final goal of the present work is to meet the regulatory
vska et al. 2011). A number of GIS methods and tech- requirements and minimize economic, environmental,
niques have been proposed to evaluate suitable landfill health, and social costs of landfill through its optimized site
location (Siddiqui et al. 1996; Al-Jarrah and Abu-Qdais selection. Hence, the siting process is divided into five
2006; Chang et al. 2008; Sumathi et al. 2008; Guiqin (a–e) sequential steps (Fig. 1):
et al. 2009; Sharifi et al. 2009; Nas et al. 2010; (a) The thematic maps of geologic, hydrological and
Khamehchiyan et al. 2011; Nazari et al. 2012). Some of hydrogeological characteristics, and demographic data
those techniques take advantage of GIS-based multi-cri- were represented as layers of georeferenced data and
teria evaluation (MCE) (Mahini and Gholamalifard 2006; constituted the GIS project using ArcGis environment.
Sener et al. 2006; Chang et al. 2008; Hasan et al. 2009; Then thematic maps were transformed on raster grid with
Sharifi et al. 2009; Khamehchiyan et al. 2011) and fuzzy cells of 100 9 100 m2 and exported to the IDRISI soft-
set theory (Chang et al. 2008; Hasan et al. 2009; ware. The multi-criteria factors are considered homoge-
Moeinaddini et al. 2010; Donevska et al. 2011; Gorsevski nous in each cell of the grid.
et al. 2012; Zelenović et al. 2012). In MCE, the weighted (b) For constraints, a Boolean criterion was used to
linear combination (WLC) is one of the most popular differentiate areas considered suitable for a waste disposal
methods because of its simplicity (Voogd 1983). Several
WLC-based approaches for landfill siting can be found in Data collection
the literature (Mahini and Gholamalifard 2006; Hasan
et al. 2009; Moeinaddini et al. 2010; Donevska et al.
Conversion to raster maps of
2011; Sahnoun et al. 2011). In the WLC procedure, uniform grid sizes
analytical hierarchy process (AHP) (Saaty 1980) is often
applied to elicit criteria weights and to better represent Selection of decision criteria
relationships between criteria and alternatives (Donevska
et al. 2011; Gorsevski et al. 2012). Another family of
MCE models uses the ‘‘outranking relations’’ to rank a set
Constraints Factors
of alternatives. A prominent role in this group is played
by the ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité
(ELECTRE) method and its derivatives (Xiaoting and Reclassification Standardization of factors
Triantaphyllou 2008). It is a comprehensive evaluation
approach to rank a number of alternatives described by a Computation of weighted
Distance operation
number of criteria (Sahnoun et al. 2011). Today, the most factors:
widely used versions are known as ELECTRE III (Shabou Establish a pair-wise matrix
Calculate factors weighted
et al. 2009). The ELECTRE methods have proved useful Boolean map Calculating Consistency Ratio
decision aids in civil and environmental engineering
(Hobbs and Meier 2000). Applications include the
Multi-criteria evaluation
assessment of complex civil engineering projects, selec- - Suitabilty maps for each set of
tion of highway designs, energy-planning problem, site factors
- Create 3 scenarios: Weighted
selection for the disposal of nuclear waste, and solid linear combination of sets of
waste management (Hokkanen and Salminen 1997; factors

Xiaoting and Triantaphyllou 2008, Shabou et al. 2009;

Sahnoun et al. 2011). The ELECTRE III method was Localization of appropriate site
chosen from its family methods, because of the impreci-
sion and uncertainty of some available data. ELECTRE III method for
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the suitability of the identification of priority
the study region to optimally site a landfill for MSW list for MSW landfill sites

Ariana using fuzzy set theory, AHP, and WLC in a GIS

environment. Then, ELECTRE method was applied to rank Fig. 1 The flow chart illustrating the methodology used in the MSW
the best alternative MSW landfill sites. landfill siting

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Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389 1377

site from those considered unsuitable under any conditions.
The Boolean image was affected by the values of 1 for the
first case (suitable site) or 0 in case of an inconvenient site.
(c) The factors are standardized to a continuous scale of
suitability from 0 (least suitable) to 10 (most suitable) in a
GIS environment by fuzzy membership functions, then
weighted and combined using the AHP method.
The AHP is a widely accepted decision-making method
based on pairwise comparisons. It is used to determine the
relative importance of a criterion in a specified decision-
making problem. In the construction of a pairwise com-
parison matrix, the factors are rated one against other by
assigning a relative dominant value between 1 and 9 to the
intersecting cell (Saaty 1977). The consistency ratio (CR)
indicates the overall consistency of the pairwise compari-
son matrix. The CR should have a value of less than 0.1 to
indicate a consistency method (Kontos et al. 2005).
(d) The determined weights are used with their corre-
sponding individual standardized criteria as input for the
WLC aggregation method. A total score is then obtained as
a sum of the products of each criteria and its weight
(Eastman 2001):
X
n
S¼ w i xi
i¼1
urban and the remaining 9 % being rural (Fig. 2). As per
the census of Tunisia, 2004, the total population of Ariana
is about 422,246 inhabitants, living in 117,100 households,
and it is rising at an annual rate of 3.81 % (INS 2004). The
average population density in this region is about 876.5
inhabitants per km2. The daily average MSW generation
for Ariana was about 0.6 kg per persons per day in the year
2004 (Aouadhi and Ben Settela 2006).
The overall climate of Ariana is of Mediterranean type,
with 460 mm of annual precipitation, an annual tempera-
ture average of 19 C (max: 27 C in August and min:
12 C in January).
The municipal authorities and the National Agency for
Waste Management are responsible for the management of
the MSW generated in the city. Until 1999, all municipal
wastes in Ariana were buried at unapproved open dumps
such as Nahli and Raoued (Fig. 2).

where S is the suitability index; w1, w2, …, wn are the

weights of the criteria constrained to sum to 1 and x1, x2,
…, xn are the standardized scores of the criteria i. As the
sum of the weights is constrained to 1, the final combined
estimate is presented on the same scale.
In this study, suitability maps for each set of factors
were combined to create three scenarios for determination
of the best suitable sites.
(e) The ELECTRE III method was applied to rank the
most favored site. This model is a highly developed multi-
criteria analysis method, based on the definition of
concordance and the discordance matrices (Vallée et
Zielniewicz 1994). Three parameters are introduced in this
method which are: indifference, preference, and veto
(Ulubeyli and Kazaz 2009). Based on this information, an
outranking for each alternative was determined, consider-
ing the preference of decision makers.
In this study, IDRISI (ver. 32) software was used to
buffer the constraints, calculate the weights of criteria,
standardize the factors by fuzzy functions, and combine the
constraints and factors by MCE procedure.

Study area

The Ariana, located in the far north-eastern part of Tunisia,

covers a total area of 482 km2, with 91 % of its area being Fig. 2 Location of the study area

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The Tunisian national strategic plan (PRONAGDES)
started in 1999 imposed dump sites closure and new san-
itary landfill construction. Hence, the Raoued and Nahli
dumping sites were closed in January 2000. It is worth
noting that, National Agency for Waste Management has
supervised landfill siting and construction projects at a
national scale. The actual MSW generated in Ariana is
transported to the sanitary landfill of Jebel Chakir, located
15 km to the south of Ariana City. The Jebel Chakir
landfill will be soon closed. The municipalities consider the
site as too far from waste production centers in Ariana
Region, which increase the transportation cost and need
additional investments in the infrastructure and subse-
quently intensify their financial problems.
Data collection
GIS maps at 1:50,000 scale of land use, slope, elevation,
road network, urban area extent, waste production centers,
permanent and temporary rivers, water supply, wetland,
ground water wells, irrigational canals, soil types, protected
area, and coastal zone limits maps were obtained from the
Regional Commission for Agricultural Development of
Ariana.
Data on groundwater levels and impermeable layer
properties (depth and thickness) were obtained through
field investigations of piezometers and via geostatistical
analysis using the Kriging Interpolator 3.2 SA tool of
ArcView.
The population data were obtained from the National
Institute of Statistics (NIS). The population density
required the building of a geographical database linked to
an alphanumeric database that considered spatial variabil-
ity in the 2004 year population and base maps compiled at
1:50,000 scale.
Criteria description and application
Criteria were selected according to the regional charac-
teristics, literature related to disposal sites and waste
management (Al-Jarrah and Abu-Qdais 2006; Mahini and
Gholamalifard; Chang et al. 2008; Sumathi et al. 2008;
Guiqin et al. 2009; Hasan et al. 2009; Sharifi et al. 2009;
Moeinaddini et al. 2010; Nas et al. 2010), local expert, data
availability, and assessments via questionnaires.
In the present study, 15 influential criteria are consid-
ered in the computation process and distinguished as con-
straints and factors. These attributes are clustered in five
main groups including geologic criteria, hydrologic and
hydrogeologic criteria, environmental criteria, social cri-
teria, and economic criteria. Constraints are the Boolean
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Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389
criteria that limit analysis to particular geographic regions.
In contrast, factors define some degree of suitability for all
geographic regions; they permit an evaluation of alterna-
tives issued from the previous step.
The constraints criteria used in this study include soil
permeability, elevation, slope, coastal zone, soil charac-
teristics, depth to impermeable layer, depth to ground water
table, water supply, wetlands, distance from rivers, prox-
imity to irrigational canals, land use, distance from roads,
protected areas, and residential areas. The factors include
land use, olfactory and sonorous impacts, proximity to an
area of dense population, distance from waste production
centers, and distance from road.
Constraints: buffer maps
According to Dikshit et al. (2000), a landfill site must be
situated at a far distance away from biophysical elements
such as water, wetlands, habitats, and wells to reduce the
contamination risk. Thus, buffer maps indicating regions
encompassing appropriate areas from these elements are
generated to act as areas of constraints where a disposal site
is unsuitable. Literature review, and a set of questionnaires
sent to the town administrators, developers, environmen-
talists, economists, and geologists were analyzed and per-
mitted to identify the most important constraints as: soil
permeability, elevation, slope, coastal zone, soil charac-
teristic, depth to impermeable layer, depth to ground water
table, water supply, wetland, distance from river, proximity
to irrigation canal, land use, distance from road, protected
area, and residential area.
Soil permeability
According to the characteristics of local geology of the
region, this criterion categorizes the area into three distinct
classes: soils having high permeability rate (sandy and
sandy-loam soils) are considered unsuitable for being used
as a landfill while soils with medium and relatively low
permeability rate (sandy clay) and very low permeability
(clay and clay loam soils) are considered fairly suitable and
optimal for landfill siting, respectively (Fig. 3).
Elevation
Elevation was considered as high areas are inaccessible and
transportation difficulties. Thus, areas of more than 200 m
elevation were considered unsuitable (Fig. 3).
Slope
The slope is a crucial factor when there are risks of
leachate pollution since higher slopes would increase
Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389 1379

Soil permeability Elevation Slope

Depth to impermeable layer

Coastal Zone Soil characteristic

Depth to groundwater Water supply Wetlands

Distance from rivers Proximity to irrigation canals Land use

Distance from roads Protected area Residential area

Fig. 3 Boolean images of constrained maps

runoff of pollutants from the landfill (Lin and Kao 1999; study, a 5 % slope was considered as the maximum slope
Sharifi et al. 2009). Steeper areas would not be economi- value. Areas with higher slope values were excluded from
cally appropriate because they would require excessive further consideration, as not appropriate for landfill siting
excavation (Gemitzi et al. 2007; Guiqin et al. 2009). In this (Fig. 3).

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Coastal zone
The landfill disposal site must be far from costal line.
Therefore, a buffer of 3 km is applied around the coastal
shoreline (Fig. 3).
Soil characteristics
Clay availability is one of the best parameters for landfill
siting. Leachate migration from the landfill could be a
potential source of surface and groundwater contamina-
tions. In order to avoid these risks for soil and groundwater,
the selected site must be implemented on an impermeable
clayey layer, which is naturally present with a minimum
thickness of 5 m (Fig. 3).
Depth to impermeable layer
A depth of the top clayey layer till 9 m was considered
(Fig. 3).
Depth to groundwater
Considering ground water contamination, depth of water
table must be taken into consideration as a highly effective
factor. The groundwater table level should be sufficiently
low and must be obligatory under the impermeable clayey
layer. In this study, the minimal depth of the groundwater
was 14 m (9 ? 5 m) (Fig. 3).
Water supply (reservoirs, wells, boreholes, springs)
The waste disposal area should be away from drinking and
irrigation water sources (wells); otherwise, it can have
irretrievable human and environmental effects. Therefore,
wells must be protected from the runoff and leaching of the
landfill (Akbari et al. 2008). According to the EU direc-
tives, a landfill should not be close to any source of water.
However, some researchers have suggested a distance of up
to 500 m away from a freshwater body (Kontos et al. 2003;
Akbari et al. 2008; Sharifi et al. 2009, Nas et al. 2010). In
this study, a 2-km buffer was placed using the function in
IDRISI software, which will be used to generate the buffer
around all water supplies (Fig. 3).
Wetlands
The waste disposal areas should not be in the vicinity of
wetland (lakes, or swamps). For this reason, a 1-km buffer
was placed using the function in GIS software, which was
used to generate the buffer around all wetland areas (lakes
or swamps) (Fig. 3).
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Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389
Distance from rivers
According to the Tunisian legislation, the disposal of solid or
liquid waste in any water body such as sea, lakes, and rivers is
prohibited. However, some studies have suggested different
buffer distances from stream and rivers based on the size of
the watershed, such as buffer of 100 m (Sumathi et al. 2008),
180 m (Zeiss and Lefsrud 1995), 200 m (Mahini and Gho-
lamalifard 2006; Akbari et al. 2008; Shabou et al. 2009),
500 m (Kontos et al. 2003; Gemitzi et al. 2007; Guiqin et al.
2009; Hasan et al. 2009), 800 m (Siddiqui et al. 1996),
1,000 m (Chang et al. 2008; Sharifi et al. 2009) and 2–3 km
(Lin and Kao 1999). A buffer distance of 200 m for perma-
nent and temporary rivers was considered unsuitable for
allocating landfills in this study (Fig. 3).
Proximity to irrigation canals
The landfill disposal site must be far away from irrigation
canals—a 200-m buffer zone of protected areas around
irrigational canals was assigned (Fig. 3).
Land use
Land use is important for resolving public conflicts over
the acceptance of unwanted facility siting. In this study,
agricultural area, urban area, rivers, wetlands, and pro-
tected area were considered unsuitable for landfill siting.
Areas with low economic advantages and unused lands are
considered suitable for MSW landfill site (Fig. 3).
Distance from roads
Landfill location must be close to roads network in order to
facilitate transportation and consequently reduce relative
costs (Zeiss and Lefsrud 1995; Chang et al. 2008). The
Tunisian law does not specify minimum distances of san-
itary landfills from roads. The road network in the region
consists of highways, main roads, secondary roads, and
tracks. Considering the huge cost of transportation and
environmental concern (visual impact, odor, excessive
noise, traffic, and scavengers), a 200-m buffer for roads
was finally fixed for this study (Fig. 3).
Protected area
Since a landfill site should not be placed on a site close to
protected area, a buffer zone of 300 m from Ennahli
National park was used (Fig. 3).
Residential area
The landfill should be situated at a significant distance
away from urban residential areas due to public concerns,
Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389
such as aesthetics, odor, noise, decrease in property value,
and health concerns, which may avoid contamination of
freshwater aquifers through leaching (Tagaris et al. 2003,
Zeiss and Lefsrud 1995; Nagar and Mizra 2002). A buffer
distance of 2 km was chosen for the study area. In this
case, suitable areas will have to be at least 2 km from the
residential zone (Fig. 3).
The potential area is obtained through the overlay of
layers relative to the 15 previous constraint criteria
(Fig. 4). Figure 4 shows the 44 candidate sites subjected to
the advanced assessment in the second-stage analysis. The
areas shown in white were excluded for consideration as a
landfill disposal site.
Factors for landfill site selection
The factor is defined as a criterion enhancing or detracting
from the relative suitability of an area for landfill siting
(Eastman et al. 1993).
In this study, factors were categorized into environ-
mental and socio-economic groups. The environmental
factor consisted of land use and olfactory and sonorous
impacts.
The proximity to an area of dense population, the dis-
tance from waste production centers and the distance from
Fig. 4 Potential area for landfill siting obtained from constraint
criteria
1381
roads were considered as components of socio-economic
factors.
These factors are standardized in a range from 0 to 10,
relatively to their relevance to site conditions.
Standardization of factors
The use of fuzzy sets within a multi-criteria, GIS-based
environmental management and decision making has been
demonstrated to have a good effect (Shabou et al. 2009).
Hence, the factors were standardized to a byte-level range
of 0–10, providing the maximum differentiation possible
(Eastman 2001). Zero is assigned to the least suitable areas
and 10 to the most suitable ones, transforming the different
measurement units of the factor images, which served as
GIS map layers, into comparable values using fuzzy
membership functions. Four fuzzy set membership func-
tions are provided in IDRISI: sigmoidal, J-shaped, linear,
and user-defined (Eastman et al. 1993). The selection of
appropriate fuzzy functions and their control points are
based on the local expert knowledge and literature review
(Table 1).
Environmental factors
The environmental factor comprises two sub-factors
namely land use and olfactory and sonorous impacts.
Rescaling categorical data of land use requires giving
a rating to each category based on the results of
questionnaire investigations of experts (agronomist,
environmentalists…).
The land use was categorized on the suitability basis on
a numeric scale containing 10 points (Table 1). Urban
areas, protected area, wetlands, and water were excluded
from consideration as they are least suitable with a score of
0. The most suitable land use is naked soil (score of 10)
while the vine and mariachi culture is assigned with the
lowest suitability (Fig. 5).
For the olfactory and sonorous impacts factors, a
monotonically increasing linear fuzzy membership func-
tion was used. The first control point (a = 200 m) indi-
cates the least suitable distance for siting a landfill while
the second control point (b = 3,000 m) and beyond indi-
cates the most suitable distance for siting a landfill (Fig. 5).
Socio-economic factors
The socio-economic factors comprises three sub-factors
namely proximity to an area of dense population, distance
from waste production centers and distance from road.
The proximity to an area of dense population considers
the costs associated with economic distances from the
source of the waste that are adjusted based on the population
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Table 1 Fuzzy set memberships and membership functions with Weighting and aggregation of factors
control points used for MSW landfill site selection
Factors Sub-factors Standardisation of factors After standardization, criteria weightings were performed.
Pairwise comparison method was used to assign weights
Control point Fuzzy
function/ and establish importance of environmental and socio-eco-
membership nomic criteria using experience of local expert knowledge
and literature review.
Environmental Land use (no
Table 2 shows the pairwise comparison matrix of rela-
units)
tive importance and weights associated to the environ-
Urban areas 0
mental factors. The land use is valued higher than the
Protected area 0
olfactory and sonorous impacts. The CR is 0 indicating a
Wetlands 0
good consistency of the judgments used for the
Water 0
comparison.
Vine 2
On the other hand, the Table 3 shows the pairwise
Mariachi 2
culture
comparison matrix of relative importance and weights
Cereals 3
associated to the socio-economic factors. The highest
weights assigned to the distance from waste production
Olive trees 3
centers were considered the most important factors. The
Forager culture 4
distance from roads is valued higher than the proximity to
Course 6
an area of dense population. The CR is 0.03 signifying a
Naked soil 10
good consistency of the judgments used for the
Olfactory and 200 and 3,000 m Linear,
sonorous increasing comparison.
impacts Finally, the WLC is used to aggregate suitability maps
Socio- Proximity to an 200 and 1,000 Sigmoidal, created by each factors. The possible suitability maps
economic area of dense inhabitants/km2 decreasing derived by this methodology are discussed in the section
population below.
Distance from 2,000 and J-shaped,
waste 5,000 m decreasing
production
centers Results and discussion
Distance from 200 and 3,000 m J-shaped,
roads decreasing WLC is applied to compute and display two decision
alternatives for landfill suitability associated with the
environmental and socio-economic factors. The two alter-
density. Thus, close proximity to the waste source decreases natives were generated by the overlay of the final constraint
the lengths of hauling and promotes better long-term eco- maps (Fig. 4) and the assigned weight of the standardized
nomic operational costs (Baban and Flannagan 1998). The criteria (Fig. 5) for the environmental and socio-economic
population density map was standardized by sigmoidal factors (Fig. 6).
monotonically decreasing fuzzy function controlled by two
points (c = 200 hab km-2, d = 1,000 hab km-2) where Scenario design
the density population less than 200 hab km-2 are the most
suitable (full membership) and more than 1,000 hab km-2 The WLC was used to create the final landfill suitability
are not suitable (full-non-membership) (Fig. 5). maps using different weights applied to the environment
The distance from waste production was standardized by and socio-economic factors (Hasan et al. 2009; Shabou
J-shaped monotonically decreasing fuzzy function, et al. 2009; Donevska et al. 2011; Sahnoun et al. 2011;
assigning highest suitability to the distances less than Gorsevski et al. 2012). The WLC alternatives are applied
2,000 m and lowest suitability to the distances more than for three scenarios generated by different weights applied
5,000 m. to the factors. For instance, the scenario (1) assigns a same
The distance from roads was standardized by using a weight of 0.5 to the environmental and the socio-economic
J-shaped monotonically decreasing fuzzy function con- factors. The scenario (2) assigns a weight of 0.75 to the
trolled by two points (c = 200 m, d = 3,000 m), where environmental factors and 0.25 to the socio-economic ones.
distances less than 200 m are the most suitable (full For the scenario (3), weights are of 0.25 and 0.75,
membership) and more than 3,000 m are not suitable (full respectively, for environmental and socio-economic factors
non-membership) (Fig. 5). (Table 4).

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Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389 1383

Fig. 5 Standardized maps for

the environmental and socio-
economic factors

Proximity to dense population

Land use Olfactory and sonorous area
impacts

Distance from waste production Distance from roads

centers

Table 2 Pairwise comparison matrix for assessing the weights of environmental factors
Land use Olfactory and sonorous impacts Eigenvector Weight

Land use 1 5 2.23 2.23/(2.23 ? 0.45) = 0.83

Olfactory and sonorous impacts 1/5 1 0.45 0.45/(2.23 ? 0.45) = 0.17
kmax = 2, CI = 0.00, CR = 0.00 (consistency is acceptable)

Using an equal interval classification method, landfill
suitability values of the Ariana City were reclassified into
three classes: class 1 (0–3), class 2 (3–7), class 3 (7–10).
This method creates an easy to understand legend and
works best with continuously distributed data (Fig. 7).
It is important to note that the most suitable sites are
concentrated to the west of the study area. This area con-
tains lowly permeable soils and poor land use without
residential inhabitants. Thus, this area can be fairly con-
sidered for landfill construction. The location of these sites,

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Table 3 Pairwise comparison matrix for assessing the weights of socio-economic factors
Proximity Distance Distance Eigenvector Weight
to an area of dense from waste from road
population production centers

Proximity to an area of dense population 1 1/5 1/3 0.44 0.11

Distance from waste production centers 5 1 3 2.44 0.63
Distance from road 3 1/3 1 1 0.26
kmax = 3.038, CI = 0.019, RI = 0.58, CR = 0.03  0.1 (consistency is acceptable)

Fig. 6 Multi-criteria
aggregation of factors by WLC

(a) Environmental factors (b) Socio-economic factors

Table 4 Pairwise comparison matrix for assessing the weights of ranged on class 3, was almost the same in the three con-
factors concerning three scenarios sidered scenarios.
Decision factor Environmental Socio- Eigenvector Weight
economic
Sizing procedure
Scenario (1) (same weighting for all sets of factors)
Environmental 1 1 1 0.5
To get suitable landfill surface area, the formula given by
Socio-economic 1 1 1 0.5
Jaramillo (2003) was adopted considering the following
Scenario (2) (environmental [ socio-economic)
assumptions: the average daily MSW production per capita
Environmental 1 3 1.73 0.75
in Ariana in 2004 is 0.6 kg/capita/day and MSW generation
Socio-economic 1/3 1 0.57 0.25
growth is set to 2 % per year (Aouadhi and Ben Settela
Scenario (3) (socio-economic [ environmental)
2006). The MSW collection coverage in urban areas is set to
Environmental 1 1/3 0.57 0.25
95 % and to 90 % in rural area (World Bank 2007). The
Socio-economic 3 1 1.73 0.75
estimated MSW quantity to be landfilled (taking into account

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Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389 1385

Scenario (1) (environemental= socio- Scenario (2) (environemental >soci-

economic) economic)

Scenario (3) (socio-economic > environemental)

Fig. 7 Possible suitability maps derived by both factors using different weights: scenario (1) 0.5 and 0.5; scenario (2) 0.75 and 0.25; and
scenario (3) 0.25 and 0.75 for the environmental and the socio-economic factors, respectively

5 % recycling and composting of 0.5 %) (Saidi et al. 2008) is
4.3 million tons for a 20-year operation period assuming a
3.81 % of the population increase per year.
In Tunisia, the waste thickness is almost set to 20 m and
the average waste density after compaction is 950 kg/m3.
The amount of cover material is set to 15 % of the
compacted volume of MSW and the additional area
required for operation facilities, penetration roads, border
setback areas, control building and sanitary facilities, etc.,
is set to 15 %.
Thus, the required area is set to 28 ha, which will be
filled in the 20 years lifespan of the landfill (Table 5). It

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1386 Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389

Table 5 Calculation of required landfill area Table 6 Family and criteria

No. Description Value Family Criteria Direction
3
Q1 Total waste to be filled (10 kg) 4,251,783 Social Cr 1: problems with local communities Min
Q2 Density of compacted MSW (kg/m3) 950 (scores 1–10)
Q3 Landfill volume required (m3)(Q1/Q2) 4,475,561 Cr 2: distance from residential area (km) Max
Q4 Cover rate 10 % Geometric Cr 3: geometric form of the site Max
Q5 Total landfill volume (waste ? cover) (m )3
4,923,117 (scores 1–10)
Q6 Landfill depth (m) 20 Economic Cr 4: availability and cost of cover soil Min
2
($/m3)
Q7 Required landfill net area (m ) (Q6/Q6) 246,156
Cr 5: possibility of extension (ha) Max
Q8 15 % Extra area required for operation facilities 36,923
(m2) (20 % Q7)
Q9 Total landfill area (m2) (Q7 ? Q8) 283,079
Table 7 Synthesis performances matrix based on the environmental
scenario

should be mentioned that we selected the scenario (2) Site Cr 1 Cr 2 Cr 3 Cr 4 Cr 5

which assigned the highest weight to the environmental
1 10 2.53 10 2.65 98.15
factors. Then, we grouped similar and adjoining pixels to
2 4 2.10 6 3.05 25.88
keep sites having an area greater than 28 ha, roughly 28
3 1 4.85 1 2.85 6.79
cells (100 9 100 m2). Thus, five appropriate sites for
4 5 4.05 4 2.35 4.05
MSW landfill were identified.
5 7 6.07 5 3.50 2.26

Outranking of candidate sites using ELECTRE III

method
Table 8 Weights, thresholds, and directions of criteria

The selected sites, according to the environmental sce- Site Cr 1 Cr 2 Cr 3 Cr 4 Cr 5

nario, are classified in a predefined category using the Indifference 2 350 1 0.9 4.05
ELECTRE III method. The evaluation criteria used are Preference 7 950 5 1.07 9.50
the problems with local communities, the distance from
Veto 0 0 0 0 0
residential area, the geometric form of the site, the
Weight 12 18.5 22.5 23.15 23.85
availability and cost of cover soil and the possibility of
Direction Min Max Max Max Max
extension (Table 6).
The five possible sites were then assigned a numerical
value according to each criterion (Table 7).
For the geometric form, the square or rectangular form The outranking of these candidate sites using ELECTRE
of the candidate site (with area of 28 ha) were assigned a III method according to both distillations were divided into
grade of 10 (best case) (length B 1.5 width). However, the ‘‘appropriate’’, ‘‘fairly appropriate’’ and ‘‘inappropriate’’
elongated form was taken as the worst case (grade of 1). An landfill areas (Fig. 8). The site number 1 is displayed as the
intermediate grade was used (1–10) for other form. best for a possible siting of the MSW landfill. The selection
The acceptance level of the surrounding communities of the final MSW site, however, requires further geotech-
must at last be satisfactory. A grade of 10 was given to the nical and hydrogeological analyses toward the protection
best candidate (no problems with local communities) and 1 of groundwater as well as surface water.
to the worst.
The possibility for landfill extension was considered by
assuming an area greater than the required landfill site size Conclusion
(28 ha). It can help the waste management authorities to
expand the capacity of the selected landfill and conse- Landfill site selection is a complex and time-consuming
quently extend their useful lifetime. process, which requires evaluation of several factors where
Once the criteria are estimated, we determined weights many different attributes are taken into account. The
to express the relative importance granted to every crite- present study shows a methodology for MSW landfill
rion. In this context, we solicited the appreciations from selection based on the application of fuzzy set theory,
emanating appreciative experts in the waste management AHP, and WLC, as applied to the Ariana Region in
field (Table 8). Tunisia. Fuzzy set theory enables criteria standardization

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Environ Earth Sci (2013) 68:1375–1389
Fig. 8 Final landfill suitability
map showing the selected sites
based on the environmental
scenario
through the application of different fuzzy membership
functions. Expert knowledge and literature review are used
for the selection of the appropriate fuzzy functions and
their control points. GIS is used for analyzing and dis-
playing geospatial data. AHP methodology is applied for
establishing the relative importance of selection criteria
and weights generation, providing an objective weight
assessment. The landfill suitability maps are created by
WLC. Finally, ELECTRE III method was applied to rank
the proposed candidate sites and identified the best option.
The Ariana Region considered in this study is too far
from the actual operating Jebel Chakir landfill, inducing
high MSW transportation cost and additional investments
1387
in the infrastructure. Initially, landfill site selection criteria
were determined depending on the regional characteristics,
literature related to disposal sites and waste management,
local expert, data availability, and assessments via
questionnaire.
The proposed method considers 15 constraints and 5
factors. These criteria are clustered in five main groups
including geology, hydrology and hydrogeology, envi-
ronment, societal, and economy. The constraints criteria
used in this study include soil permeability, elevation,
slope, coastal zone, soil characteristics, depth to imper-
meable layer, depth to ground water table, water supply,
wetlands, distance from rivers, proximity to irrigational
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1388
canals, land use, distance from roads, protected areas, and
residential areas. The factors were categorized into envi-
ronmental and socio-economic groups. The environmental
factor consisted of land use and olfactory and sonorous
impacts. The proximity to an area of dense population,
the distance from waste production centers and the dis-
tance from roads were considered as the components of
socio-economic factor.
The combination of different sets of factors according
to the environmental scenario indicated five possible
disposal sites. This area contained lowly permeable soils
and poor land use without residential inhabitants. The
ELECTRE III method was applied to rank the proposed
candidate sites and identified the best option. These sites
generally satisfy the minimum requirements of a landfill
site. However, the selection of the final MSW site
requires further detailed geotechnical and hydrogeologi-
cal analyses toward the protection of groundwater as
well as surface water.
Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the technical support
from the Commissariat Régional de Développement Agricole de
l’Ariana for the data reports cited and used in this analysis.
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