Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Waste Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman

Using MCDA and GIS for hazardous waste landfill siting considering land
scarcity for waste disposal
Giovanni De Feo a,⇑, Sabino De Gisi b
a
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
b
Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, ENEA, Water Resource Management Lab., via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, 40129
Bologna, BO, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The main aim of this study was to develop a procedure that minimizes the wasting of space for the siting
Received 3 January 2014 of hazardous waste landfills as part of a solid waste management system. We wanted to tackle the short-
Accepted 26 May 2014 age of land for waste disposal that is a serious and growing problem in most large urban regions. The
Available online xxxx
procedure combines a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach with a geographical information
system (GIS). The GIS was utilised to obtain an initial screening in order to eliminate unsuitable areas,
Keywords: whereas the MCDA was developed to select the most suitable sites. The novelty of the proposed siting
Hazardous waste
procedure is the introduction of a new screening phase before the macro-siting step aimed at producing
Landfill
Land use map
a ‘‘land use map of potentially suitable areas’’ for the siting of solid waste facilities which simultaneously
Land shortage takes into consideration all plant types. The issue of obtaining sites evaluations of a specific facility was
Siting coupled with the issue of not wasting land appropriate to facilitate other types of waste management
Waste management options. In the developed case study, the use of an innovative criteria weighting tool (the ‘‘Priority Scale’’)
in combination with the Analytic Hierarchy Process was useful to easier define the priorities of the eval-
uation criteria in comparison with other classic methods such as the Paired Comparison Technique in
combination with the Simple Additive Weighting method.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction phase (micro-siting or spatial multi-criteria analysis) is aimed at

Selecting suitable sites for the construction of hazardous waste
facilities is a complex process, because it needs a multidisciplinary
approach that incorporates natural, physical-social sciences,
politics, and ethics. Since hazardous waste facilities are commonly
perceived as threats to public health, life quality and natural eco-
systems (Kikuchi and Gerardo, 2009), they belong to the group of
detested or undesired facilities. They suffer from two main
problems (Lober, 1995): social opposition; the huge number of
environmental and social data to consider when deciding on the
best plant location with the least nuisances, highest efficiency
and likelihood of social acceptance.
Generally, a siting process can be divided into three phases. The
first phase (macro-siting or feasibility analysis) is aimed at select-
ing ‘‘non-suitable areas’’ as well as ‘‘potentially suitable areas’’ on
the basis of ‘‘excluding criteria’’ defined by literature and/or legis-
lation. An excluding criterion means unacceptability of an area and
implies the total exclusion of the facility in that area. The second
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 089 964113; fax: +39 089 968738.
E-mail address: g.defeo@unisa.it (G.D. Feo).
identifying a list of sites with the use of ‘‘preferential and penaliz-
ing criteria’’. The preferential criteria indicate the presence of ele-
ments of suitability as well as advisability for the siting of the
plant. The penalizing criteria indicate the presence of contraindica-
tions suggesting the construction of the facility only taking into
consideration special care in the design and construction phases.
The penalizing criteria will be discriminating and not excluding
for the siting of the plant. The third and last step includes the selec-
tion of the most suitable sites among those potentially suitable.
The problem of undesirable facilities location has been exten-
sively studied in literature in terms of both social and technical
aspects. The current state-of-art is based on the combination of spa-
tial techniques, such as geographical information systems (GIS) and
multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) (Sumathi et al., 2008;
Tavares et al., 2011). The purpose of GIS was to perform an initial
screening process to eliminate unsuitable areas, mainly working
at the macro-siting level, followed by the utilization of MCDA to
select the most suitable sites. Table 1 shows examples of studies
presenting the different methodologies developed until now.
In most of the above-referred siting works, the main aim was to
choose the best site (or a list of suitable sites) for the location of a

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2014.05.028
0956-053X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Feo, G.D., Gisi, S.D. Using MCDA and GIS for hazardous waste landfill siting considering land scarcity for waste disposal.
Waste Management (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2014.05.028
2 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Main aim, type of facility and methodology for the siting of solid waste facilities.

Reference Main aim Facility under Methodology

study
Jensen and Identify potential sites for solid and hazardous waste disposal Solid and GIS
Christensen facilities siting in the south-eastern United States hazardous
(1986) waste disposal
site
Charnpratheep Evaluation of suitable areas for landfill siting in Thailand Landfill Combination of fuzzy set theory and the AHP into a
et al. (1997) raster-based GIS
Lin and Kao Select suitable sites for a landfill siting Landfill Vector based spatial model
(1998)
Leão et al. Asses the demand for landfills and their allocation over time under a Landfill Combining spatial–temporal model and GIS
(2004) range of scenarios of decision-making regarding waste disposal
systems, urban growth patterns and land evaluation criteria in the city
of Porto Alegre (Brazil)
Kontos et al. Evaluation of suitable areas for landfill siting in the island of Lemnos Landfill Integration of MCDA, GIS, spatial analysis and spatial
(2005) in the North Aegean Sea (Greece) statistics
Chang et al. Select the best suitable site for landfill siting in the city of Harlingen in Landfill Combining GIS with fuzzy multicriteria decision-making
(2008) south Texas (USA)
Delgado et al. Evaluation of suitable areas for sanitary landfill siting in the basin of Landfill Combination of three spatial decision-support models
(2008) Lake Cuitzeo (Mexico) (Boolean logic, binary evidence and overlapping index of
multiple class maps) with GIS
Sumathi et al. Evaluation of suitable areas for sanitary landfill siting in the district of Landfill Combination of MCDA and GIS
(2008) Pondicherry (India)
Zamorano et al. Evaluation of landfill site suitability in Southern Spain (area of Landfill EVIAVE (a landfill diagnosis method developed at the
(2008) Granada) University of Granada) and GIS
Sharifi et al. Evaluation of suitable areas for hazardous landfill siting in Kurdistan Landfill Combination of MCDA and GIS
(2009) Province (western Iran) (hazardous)
Guiqin et al. Select the best candidate sites for landfill siting in Beijing (China) Landfill Combination of MCDA and GIS
(2009)
De Feo and De Select the best alternative site for composting plant siting in an area in Composting Combination of MCDA and GIS
Gisi (2010) the Province of Avellino, Campania region (Southern Italy) plant
Geneletti Design possible sites for an inert landfill, and then rank them Landfill (inert) Combination of stakeholder analysis and spatial
(2010) according to their suitability in the Sarca’s Plain, located in south- multicriteria evaluation (SMCE)
western Trentino (Italy)
Moeinaddini Identity the best alternative for landfill siting in the Karaj area, Landfill Weighted linear combination and AHP methodology in a
et al. (2010) Province of Tehran (Iran) GIS environment
Sener et al. Select of a landfill site for the Lake Beysßehir catchment area (Konya, Landfill Combination of MCDA and GIS
(2010) Turkey)
Tavares et al. Evaluate suitable area for incineration plant siting in the Santiago Incinerator Multi-criteria GIS-based techniques
(2011) Island (Cape Verde)
Eskandari et al. Define suitable sites for landfill siting in the Marvdasht area (Iran) Landfill Combination of MCDA and GIS. Data acquisition also
(2012a,b) with questionnaires
Gorsevski et al. Evaluation of suitable areas for landfill siting in the Polog Region Landfill Integration of MCDA in a GIS environment
(2012) (Macedonia)
Gbanie et al. Identify municipal landfill sites in urban areas in Bo (Sierra Leone) Landfill Combination of MCDA and GIS
(2013)

GIS: geographic information system; AHP: Analytic Hierarchy Process; MCDA: multi-criteria decision analysis.

single type of solid waste facility in a country generally having a
solid waste system based only on landfills. The interaction between
the plant to localize at the present and the other facilities to localize
in the future in the same area is generally not considered. In this
condition, government institutions run the risk of ‘‘wasting land’’
and, as a consequence, locating a plant with lower environmen-
tal/health relative risk (e.g., a composting plant or a landfill for inert
waste) in potentially suitable areas for the siting of a plant with
higher relative risks such as a hazardous waste landfill.
The land use optimization issue for the siting of solid waste facil-
ities is particularly important above all in countries with an
advanced environmental legislation, high degree of urbanization
and low availability of potentially suitable areas. This is the situation
of industrialized countries characterized by a comprehensive solid
waste management system composed of the following facilities
(De Feo and Malvano, 2009): hazardous waste landfills, non-hazard-
ous waste landfills, inert waste landfills, waste-to-energy plants
(based on incineration, pyrolysis or gasification), mechanical biolog-
ical treatment (MBT) plants, composting and anaerobic digestion
plants, materials recovery plants generally after separate collection.
Of the most recent works reported in Table 1, only Leão et al.
(2004) highlights how the shortage of land for waste disposal is a
serious and growing potential problem in most urban regions.
Generally, this aspect is considered a posteriori during the Envi-
ronmental Impact Assessment (EIA) phase, although the risk of
having a non-conformity of the EIA process and consequently the
need to choose a new site with all the technical and social prob-
lems related to this step (Salhofer et al., 2007). Thus, the siting of
a well-defined type of solid waste facility should necessarily con-
sider all the other plants (already present and to be expected in
the future) of the solid waste management system of the consid-
ered area with a systemic approach.
An additional issue concerning the siting of solid waste facilities
is the definition of new interface tools for the assignment of
weights to the evaluation criteria used for selecting the best alter-
native among a list of potentially suitable sites (Demesouka et al.,
2013; Korucu and Erdagi, 2012). Such interface tools should be able
to intercept the request for stakeholders’ involvement directly in
the siting procedure in order to reduce to a minimum all those con-
ditions that may negatively affect the outcome of a localization
process (Llurdes et al., 2003).
In this context, the aim of our work is to define a new method-
ology for hazardous waste landfill siting based on the combination
of MCDA and GIS in order (i) to minimize the shortage of land for
waste disposal and (ii) to provides more reliable and convincing
the hierarchization of suitable sites.

Please cite this article in press as: Feo, G.D., Gisi, S.D. Using MCDA and GIS for hazardous waste landfill siting considering land scarcity for waste disposal.
Waste Management (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2014.05.028
 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
For the first aim, our idea includes the introduction of a new
phase inside the standard siting procedure in order to consider
the trade-offs between the plant to localize at the present and
the other facilities to localize in the future. This is directly done
during the decision-making process of the facilities siting itself
and consequently optimizing the land use of the area by avoiding
the wasting of space. To the best of our knowledge, no practical
studies have been reported in literature that incorporate the prob-
lem of consumption of landfill space over time and analyse its
implications in the siting procedure.
For the second aim, two different MCDA-based techniques for
the selection of the best alternative were simultaneously used
and compared: (1) the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) (Ching-
Lai and Kwangsun, 1981) as multi-criteria technique to define
alternatives priorities, coupled with the Paired Comparison Tech-
nique (PCT) (Mondy and Noe, 2008) as a means of evaluating crite-
ria priorities (shortly ‘‘SAW–PCT’’); (2) the AHP as a MCDA
technique coupled with the Priority Scale Weighting (PSW) tool
(De Feo and De Gisi, 2010) in order to evaluate criteria priorities
(shortly ‘‘AHP–PSW’’). Details on the cited MCDA techniques are
given in the methodological section.
The applicability of the proposed procedure was verified con-
sidering the case study of the Province of Avellino, in the Campania
region of Southern Italy (Fig. 1), with a surface area of 2792 km2, a
population of 439,137 inhabitants (National Institute of Statistics,
1st January 2011), and a density of 157 inhabitants/km2.
2. Methodology
In the first phase of the procedure for the siting of hazardous
waste landfills, we have to define the siting criteria for all the facil-
ities of the solid waste management system. In order to have an idea,
the following facilities were considered in our case study: hazardous
waste landfills; non-hazardous waste landfills; inert waste landfills;
waste-to-energy plants; MBT plants; composting and anaerobic
digestion plants. The criteria sets (one for each single type of facility)
can be defined on the base of existing national and regional legisla-
tion, regulations, experiences and expertise, and should cover natu-
ral, socio-economic, technical and environmental aspects.
The second phase is the macro-siting that is aimed at selecting
‘‘non-suitable areas’’ as well as ‘‘potentially suitable areas’’ on the
Fig. 1. The investigated area: province of Avellino in Campania region (Southern Italy).
Please cite this article in press as: Feo, G.D., Gisi, S.D. Using MCDA and GIS for hazardous waste landfill siting considering land scarcity for waste disposal.
Waste Management (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2014.05.028
3
basis of ‘‘excluding criteria’’, separately for all the types of solid
waste facility considered (e.g., the six mentioned in the previous
phase as an example of the application of the proposed procedure
to our case study). In other words, a suitability map is derived for
each type of waste facility considered. In this phase we have also
adopted the penalizing criteria (for each type of facility) although
they are considered only in the fourth step of the procedure.
The elaboration of the ‘‘land use map of potentially suitable
areas’’, that is a single map that takes into account all the maps
produced at the previous point, is the third phase of the procedure.
In other words, the overlaying of the single suitability maps is
obtained in this step. Before describing in detail how to elaborate
the land use map of potentially suitable areas, it should be empha-
sized how the novelty of the proposed siting procedure is precisely
the introduction of a new screening phase before the micro-siting.
The main aim of the screening phase is to minimize the wasting of
space allowing for a proper land use. This is pursued simulta-
neously by considering all the types of solid waste facilities that
are present in the solid waste management system. The geo-refer-
enced overlapping of all the potentially suitable areas maps for
each type of facility and the use of ArcViewÒ spatial analysis func-
tions enables the processing of the global ‘‘land use map of the
potentially suitable areas’’, identifying the following classes:
 Areas with excluding factors non-suitable for the siting.
 Areas potentially suitable for the siting of inert waste
landfills.
 Areas potentially suitable for the siting of non-hazardous
waste landfills.
 Areas potentially suitable for the siting of hazardous waste
landfills.
 Areas for the siting of solid waste technological plants (i.e.,
waste-to-energy plants, MBT plants, composting and anaer-
obic digestion plants, etc.).
In particular, the steps for the elaboration of the ‘‘land use map
of the potentially suitable areas’’ are the followings:
 For each map of potentially suitable areas relating to each
type of solid waste facility (5 in our case), we consider only
areas classified as ‘‘potentially suitable’’ and ‘‘penalizing’’.
These areas are then joined by means of the ArcViewÒ merge
4 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
function generating a new area with a total surface indicated
with Si (where i indicates the type of facility: i = 1 for techno-
logical plants; i = 2 for inert landfills; i = 3 for composting and
anaerobic digestion plants; i = 4 for non-hazardous landfills;
i = 5 for hazardous landfills).
 A new map document (project) is created in ArcViewÒ that
contains 5 layouts corresponding to the 5 areas of the previ-
ous step. In addition, a colour is assigned to each area: orange
for S1 + S3 (technological plants); green water for S2 (inert
landfills); light blue for S4 (non-hazardous landfills) and; blue
for S5 (hazardous landfills). Moreover, major details are visi-
ble in Fig. A.7 of Appendix A (see Supplementary materials).
 Starting from inert (considered as the solid waste facility
with the lower environmental/health impact) to hazardous
waste landfills (see the priority pyramid of Fig. 2a), the
geo-referenced overlapping of all the obtained layouts based
on the ArcViewÒ spatial analysis functions (in particular
intersect and merge), enables the processing of the land use
map of potentially suitable areas as subsequently shown in
this map. An increase of the solid waste facility hazardous
nature generates a decrease of the available surfaces for
plants localization as visible in Fig. 2b.
 Finally, with reference to the potentially suitable areas of
the solid waste technological plants, they correspond with
the industrial zones present in the territory under study.
With the land use map of potentially suitable areas, if a landfill
for inert waste or non-hazardous waste has to be localized, it will
be searched for in only those areas suitable for the siting of those
types of waste avoiding to choose (‘‘wasting’’) areas potentially
suitable for the siting of hazardous waste landfills. Thus, the set
of useful alternative sites for the siting of hazardous waste landfills
on which to subsequently carry out the hierarchization have to be
chosen from the land use map of potentially suitable areas.
The fourth phase of the procedure is the micro-siting. It is aimed
at identifying a set of sites inside the potentially suitable areas
defined at the precedent step. Starting from the suitable macro
areas for the hazardous waste landfills siting (the ‘‘blue areas’’ as
defined earlier), the use of the ‘‘preferential criteria’’ and ‘‘penaliz-
ing criteria’’ related to the hazardous waste landfills (see the next
Table 2), allows to identify the single sites. In this operation, pref-
erential and penalizing criteria are very important. In fact, they
allow to cordon off directly the site. In addition, the boundaries
of the site are carried out giving priority to those areas character-
ized by preferential factors and/or a lower number of penalizing
factors. Identified the single site, it is further verified considering
the excluding criteria on a more detailed mapping scale.
Hazardous waste landfills
Non hazardous waste landfills
Composting and anaerobic digestion
plants
Inert landfills
Technological plants
(a)
Fig. 2. Details of the ‘‘potentially suitable areas land use map’’ elaboration: (a) hazardous nature ranking and (b) surface dimensions of potentially suitable areas for each type
of solid waste facilities considered in this study.
Please cite this article in press as: Feo, G.D., Gisi, S.D. Using MCDA and GIS for hazardous waste landfill siting considering land scarcity for waste disposal.
Waste Management (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2014.05.028
Identifications of suitable sites is particularly difficult in areas of
historic unpopularity for waste management as that of the per-
formed case study. In fact, in the last few years, a waste emergency
affected the Campania region of Southern Italy (assuming inter alia
an international aspect as reported in De Feo et al., 2013a). Govern-
ments located a non-hazardous waste landfill in correspondence to
one of the areas particularly suitable to host a hazardous waste
landfill with a clear shortage of land for hazardous waste disposal.
In particular, the percentage of potentially suitable areas for haz-
ardous landfills is decreased from the value of 1.14% to the value
of 1.01% with a shortage of about 25.5 km2 of land. Due to the
low percentage of potentially suitable areas (1.14%), this situation
is fairly penalizing for the Campania region since by law (Campania
LR 4, 2007) each Province should be self-sufficient in terms of
waste management (in other words, each province is as a closed
system). Experience of failure of solid waste facilities siting in
the world and most recently in the Campania Region shows how
the issue of the proper management of soil is important in order
to increase the transparency of the decision-making process
(Llurdes et al., 2003). Therefore, the siting of hazardous waste land-
fill sites should be carried out only in those areas suitable for host-
ing this type of facility and this condition should be ensured for
each type of solid waste facility to localize.
The fifth phase of the proposed methodology consists of defin-
ing a preliminary set of evaluation criteria and sub-criteria useful
for the evaluation of the siting alternatives. For instance, we con-
sidered the following seven macro-categories:
 Population presence (C1).
 Groundwater risk (C2).
 Agricultural value (C3).
 Additional traffic on local roads (C4).
 Economy (C5).
 Protected areas (C6).
 Climate (C7).
As shown in Fig. 3a, the chosen criteria can be further detailed
in some sub-criteria if convenient. The evaluation criteria and sub-
criteria of the preliminary set are not necessarily present in the
alternatives matrix. This case occurs when for one or more criteria
and/or sub-criteria, with the values assumed by all the considered
alternative sites being equal to zero.
Defining the alternatives matrix is the sixth phase of the proce-
dure that means giving a value to the criteria for all the considered
alternative sites. The alternatives matrix has as many rows as the
number of selected useful sites, and as many columns as the num-
ber of effective criteria and sub-criteria. Regarding the data
Si = potentially suitable
Technological plants areas surface
i = facility
Inert landfills
S1
Composting and
anaerobic digestion
plants S2
Non hazardous
waste landfills S3
S4
Hazardous
waste
landfills S5
(b)
 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 5

Table 2
Siting criteria required by Italian and Regional legislations (Campania Region, Southern Italy) used for the elaboration of the maps of potentially suitable areas (macro-siting) for
all the types of solid waste facility considered.

No. Criteria Solid waste facilitiesa

F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
1 Altimetry
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
2 First category seismicity_1
⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄
3 First category seismicity_2
⁄⁄
4 Second category seismicity
5 ‘‘High’’b and ‘‘Very high’’b landslide riskc ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄

6 ‘‘Moderate’’b and ‘‘Low’’b landslide riskc ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄

7 ‘‘High’’b and ‘‘Very high’’b hydraulic riskc ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄

8 ‘‘Moderate’’b and ‘‘Low’’b hydraulicriskc ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄

⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄

9 Fluvial dynamics
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
10 Surface karsification
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
11 Wooded areas_1
⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄
12 Wooded areas_2
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
13 Permanent pastures
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄
14 Distance from urban areas
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
15 Distance from water sources
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
16 Groundwater vulnerability
⁄ ⁄ ⁄
17 Wastewater treatment plants efficiency
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
18 Distance from water bodies
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
19 Landscape
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
20 Protected natural areas
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
21 Natura 2000 network areas
⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄
22 Faunal repopulation areas
⁄ ⁄ ⁄
23 Industrial areas
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
24 Distance from infrastructure
⁄ ⁄ ⁄
25 Disused industrial areas
⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄
26 Mining activity areas (quarries)
⁄ ⁄ ⁄ ⁄
27 Contiguous industrial areas
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
28 Agricultural areas_1
⁄⁄ ⁄⁄ ⁄⁄
29 Agricultural areas_2
⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄
30 Archaeological areas
TOTEX Excluding criteria 18 18 17 15 14 14
TOTPE Penalizing criteria 4 3 3 7 8 8
TOTPR Preferential criteria 1 1 2 4 4 4
TOT Total number 23 22 22 26 26 26
a
Solid waste management facilities: F1 = hazardous waste landfill; F2 = non-hazardous waste landfill; F3 = inert materials landfill; F4 = waste-to-energy plant;
F5 = mechanical biological treatment plant (MBT); F6 = composting and anaerobic digestion plant.
b
The values assumed by the risk zoning descriptors (both for landslide risk and hydraulic risk) are directly furnished by the Catchment Plans of the following Local
Authorities: National Authority of ‘‘Liri-Garigliano and Volturno’’ (http://www2.autoritadibacino.it/), Regional Authority of ‘‘Sarno’’ (http://www.autoritabacinosarno.it/),
Regional Authority of ‘‘Nord-Occidentale della Campania’’ (http://www.autoritabacinonordoccidentale.campania.it/), Regional Authority of ‘‘Destra Sele’’ (http://
www.autoritabacinodestrasele.it/), Regional Authority of ‘‘Puglia’’ (http://www.adb.puglia.it/public/news.php).
c
Risk is defined as a measure of the probability and severity of an adverse effect to health, property or the environment (Fell et al., 2008).
d
All other sources: Italian (Decreto Legislativo 3 aprile 2006, n. 152, ‘‘Norme in materia ambientale’’, Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 88 del 14 aprile 2006 – Supplemento Ordinario n.
96, in Italian) and European Union Legislation (Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste, Official Journal L 182, 16/07/1999, 1–9).
e
Type of criteria: *** = excluding criteria; ** = penalizing criteria; * = preferential criteria.

acquired, in our study we have only used raster data although the
developed GIS environment could implement them.
Defining the criteria priorities with the Priority Scale Weighting
(PSW) tool (De Feo and De Gisi, 2010) and applying the Analytic
Hierarchy Process (AHP) to the alternatives matrix weighted with
the PSW tool is the aim of the seventh phase of the procedure. A
first alternatives ranking (AHP–PSW) will be obtained in terms of
normalized alternatives priorities, with the best site having a value
equal to one. The criteria priorities have to be defined both at the
sub-criteria levels (local priorities) as well as the criteria level
(global priorities).
The criteria priorities to use with AHP have to be defined by
means of the PSW tool. After the compilation of the priorities
scales, they have to be transformed into the corresponding criteria
weights vector according to the rules in the pair-wise comparison
reported in De Feo and De Gisi (2010). The PSW graphically collects
the criteria priorities avoiding to make mistakes, and it allows hav-
ing a full view of all criteria priorities. The PSW only uses the val-
ues 1 (equal), 3 (moderate), 5 (strong), 7 (very strong) and 9
(extreme) of the Saaty scale (Saaty, 1996). Each priority scale has
to be subsequently transformed into a weights vector. This opera-
tion could be done by means of the Expert ChoiceÒ software
(Expertchoice, 2004). The non-effective criteria do not have to be
considered in the AHP hierarchy (they are criteria with no effective
values, i.e. the values assigned to them were equal to zero).
Defining the criteria priorities (local and global) with the
Paired Comparison Technique (PCT) and applying the Simple
Additive Weighting (SAW) technique to the alternatives matrix
weighted with the PCT method is the aim of the eight phase of
the procedure. A second alternatives ranking (SAW–PCT) will be
obtained in terms of normalized alternatives priorities. The prior-
ity scales defined at the previous point can be used to perform
the pair-wise comparisons with the PCT method as defined by
Mondy and Noe (2008). With the PCT technique, the paired-com-
parison between criteria Ci and Cj are coded as follows: Ci has pri-
ority 1 if it is preferred over Cj; Ci has priority 0 if Cj is preferred
over Ci; both Ci and Cj have priority 0.5 if they have the same
importance. Moreover, in order to avoid assigning a 0 priority,
each criterion is considered to be preferable over a dummy crite-
rion. The priority of every criterion is calculated dividing the sum
of its preferences by the sum of the preferences of all the criteria
(De Feo et al., 2013b).
The ninth and last phase is the comparison of the two alterna-
tives rankings and selection of the best site. If the two rankings

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6 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Goal Goal
C1 C1
C1,1 C1,1
C1,1,1 (1) C1,1,1 (1)
C1,1,2 (2) C1,1,2 (2)
C1,1,3 (3) C1,1,3 (3)
C1,2 C1,2
C1,2,1 (4)
C1,2,2 (5)
C2 C1,2,3 (6) C2 C1,2,3 (4)
C2,1 (7) C2,1 (5)
C2,2 C2,2
C2,2,1 (8)
C2,2,2 (9)
C2,2,3 (10)
C3 C2,2,4 (11) C3 C 2,2,4 (6)
C3,1 (12) C 3,1 (7)
C3,2 (13)
C3,3 (14) C 3,3 (8)
C4 (15) C4 (9)
C5 C5
C5,1 (16) C 5,1 (10)
C5,2 (17) C 5,2 (11)
C6 (18) C6 (12)
C7 C7
C 7,1 (19) C 7,1 (13)
C 7,2 (20) C 7,2 (14)
(a) (b)
Fig. 3. Flow-chart of criteria and sub-criteria: (a) preliminary set (n = 20); and (b) actual set for the developed case study (n = 14).

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Fig. 4. Example of use of penalizing factors for identifying areas where locate hazardous waste landfill: (a) area potentially suitable as identified in the land use map of
potentially suitable areas; (b) penalizing factor 1: areas with ‘‘Moderate’’ and ‘‘low’’ landslide risk (see Table A1 of Appendix A, Supplementary data); (c) penalizing factor 2:
faunal repopulation areas (see Table A1 of Appendix A, Supplementary data); (d) penalizing factor 3: geological condition (see Table A1 of Appendix A, Supplementary data);
and (e) identification of site perimeter.

give the same site as the best alternative, the latter will be chosen neously using two different MCDA-based techniques for the selec-
as the best site. On the contrary, the best site will be that with the tion of the best alternative gives more affordability to the siting
highest average value obtained considering both the AHP–PSW procedure. Obviously, the final verification of proposed method
normalized ranking and SAW–PCT normalized ranking. Simulta- has to be checked by field investigation.

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 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 7

Fig. 5. Potentially suitable areas in the phase of macro-siting: (a) hazardous waste landfills; (b) non-hazardous waste landfills; (c) inert waste landfills; (d) waste-to-energy
plants; and (e) composting, anaerobic digestion and MBT plants (see Supplementary data in Appendix A).

Thus, the proposed methodology for the siting of hazardous
waste landfills is a summation of the proposed methodological
framework discussed in the current section, and consists of the fol-
lowing nine phases:
1. Definition of the siting criteria according to national and
regional legislation for all the facilities of the solid waste
management system.
2. Elaboration of the maps of potentially suitable areas
(macro-siting) for each specific type of solid waste facility
considered.
3. Elaboration of the ‘‘land use map of potentially suitable
areas’’ for the siting of all solid waste facilities (spatial inter-
section of the data estimated in the previous step).
4. Detailed identification of the siting alternatives (sites where
to construct a hazardous waste landfill) with a punctual ver-
ification of the excluding criteria.
5. Definition of the criteria useful for the evaluation of the sit-
ing alternatives (evaluation criteria).
6. Definition of the alternatives matrix.
7. Definition of the criteria priorities with the PSW tool and
application of the AHP to the alternatives matrix weighted
with the PSW tool, obtaining a first alternatives ranking.

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8 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Fig. 6. Land use map of potentially suitable areas (a) for the siting of solid waste facilities; identification of the siting alternatives (b) and (c) (see Supplementary data in
Appendix A).

8. Definition of the criteria priorities with the PCT and appli-
cation of the SAW method to the alternatives matrix
weighted with the PCT method, obtaining a second alter-
natives ranking.
9. Comparison of the two alternatives rankings and selection
of the best site.
2.1. The role of penalizing criteria
In our study, the use of penalizing criteria changes with the
phase taken into consideration. With reference to the macrosit-
ing phase, penalizing criteria are useful to elaborate the poten-
tially suitable map for each type of facility. Generally, these

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 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Table 3
Potentially suitable areas for landfills siting and number of constraints for the recent case studies reported in literature.
Reference Study area
Gorsevski et al. (2012) Polog Region (Macedonia)
Eskandari et al. (2012a,b) Marvdasht area (Iran)
Sener et al. (2010) Lake Beysßehir catchment area (Konya, Turkey)
Guiqin et al. (2009) Beijing (China)
Delgado et al. (2008) Basin of Lake Cuitzeo (Mexico)
Kontos et al. (2005) Island of Lemnos in the North Aegean Sea (Greece)
Our work Province of Avellino in the Campania Region (Italy)
Non-hazardous waste landfills
Hazardous waste landfills
a
Only excluding and penalizing criteria were considered.
b
Only ‘‘Environmental factors’’ as defined by the authors.
criteria are set by law. With reference to hazardous waste land-
fills as well as Campania Region legislation, we considered the
following criteria (see also Table A1 of Appendix A, Supplemen-
tary data):
 Areas with a second category seismicity according to the
Italian Law (DGR n. 5447/2000).
 Areas with ‘‘Moderate’’ and ‘‘low’’ landslide risk.
 Areas with ‘‘Moderate’’ and ‘‘low’’ hydraulic risk.
 Faunal repopulation areas.
 Areas with clayey-marly-sandstone complex.
Considering the screening phase, penalizing criteria contribute
to the definition of the priority order of the six typologies of
MSW facilities considered, as shown in Fig. 2a. For example, facil-
ities F1 (hazardous waste landfill, see Table 2) and F2 (non-hazard-
ous waste landfill, see Table 2) only differed by one criterion: the
second category seismicity. This was due how the Campania waste
management regional plan (Regional Law n. 4, 2007) took into con-
sideration seismic events. Moreover, areas affected by penalizing
criteria in the screening phase were considered in the same way
as those potentially suitable.
With reference to the micrositing phase, penalizing criteria as
well as preferential ones were useful in order to define the
perimeter of the site where localize the MSW facility. In partic-
ular, this choice was performed in accordance to the following
simple rules:
 Areas with no penalizing criteria and with preferential ones
have to be privileged.
 Areas with no penalizing criteria have to be privileged.
 Areas with the lowest number of penalizing criteria have to
be privileged.
Following these rules, Fig. 4 shows an example of delimitation
of the site perimeter. In details, we can see how the study area
(that is potentially suitable for the hazardous waste landfill siting
as reported in the land use map of potentially suitable areas) con-
tains the following penalizing criteria:
 Areas with ‘‘Moderate’’ and ‘‘low’’ landslide risk.
 Areas for faunal repopulation activity.
 Areas with clayey-marly-sandstone complex.
Without preferential criteria, it is possible to observe how the
site shown in Fig. 4e represents a possible solution of the
micrositing issue. Furthermore, other perimeters can be identi-
fied as long as they (i) fall within the potentially suitable areas
and (ii) the available area is sufficient to contain the facility to
be located.
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9
Surface (km2) Number of constraintsa
Total Potentially suitable Percentage (%)
2417 33.84 1.400 8b
4040 318.55 0.303 16
4167 135.01 3.240 9
16,807.8 461.69 2.747 9
4000 372.00 9.300 12
480 44.64 9.300 11
2792 120.64 4.32 22
2792 31.94 1.14 23
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Phase 1. Definition of the siting criteria according to national and
regional legislation for all the facilities of the solid waste management
system
Table 2 shows the siting criteria adopted in our case study for
each type of solid waste facility considered.
They were mainly chosen on the base of national (Italian DL 152,
2006) and regional legislation (Campania LR 4, 2007). The total
number of siting criteria was 23 for hazardous waste landfills,
and 22 for both non-hazardous and inert waste landfills. The differ-
ence between hazardous and non-hazardous waste landfills (see
subscript of Table 2) was in the criteria called ‘‘second seismicity
category’’ penalizing only for the first type of plant. Going from haz-
ardous to inert waste landfills, the number of excluding criteria
decreases in line with the lower environmental/health risks related
to inert waste landfills. At the same time, the number of preferential
criteria increases. For the technological plants (indicated with F4,
F5 and F6, see subscript of Table 2), the total number of criteria
was greater than that for landfills mainly due to the presence of
diverse preferential factors. On the contrary, the number of exclud-
ing criteria was lower as shown in Table 2. A detailed description of
each single criterion for each specific solid waste facility is available
in Appendix A (Table A.1 for hazardous waste landfills, Table A.2 for
non-hazardous waste landfills, Table A.3 for inert waste landfills,
Table A.4 for waste-to-energy plants, Table A.5 for MBT plants
and Table A.6 for composting and anaerobic digestion plants).
3.2. Phase 2. Elaboration of the maps of potentially suitable areas
(macro-siting) for each specific type of solid waste facility considered
Fig. 5 shows the maps of the potentially suitable areas for the
siting of each type of solid waste facility prepared on the basis of
the specific siting criteria (set by national and regional legislation)
reported in Tables A.1–A.6 of Appendix A. The same high resolution
maps can be seen in Figs. A.1–A.6 of Appendix A for hazardous
waste landfills, non-hazardous waste landfills, inert waste landfills,
waste-to-energy plants, MBT plants, composting and anaerobic
digestion plants, respectively. The maps of the potentially suitable
areas were obtained by means of a geographically referred (geo-
referred) overlapping of the siting criteria through the use of Arc-
ViewÒ software for each type of solid waste facility considered.
3.3. Phase 3. Elaboration of the ‘‘land use map of potentially suitable
areas’’ for the siting of all solid waste facilities
The geo-referenced overlapping of all the maps of potentially
suitable areas for each single type of facility (see Fig. 5) and the
10 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

Table 4
Criteria for the evaluation of hazardous waste landfills sites (evaluation criteria).

N. Evaluation criteria Description

C1 Population risk
C1,1,1 Resident population (0–500 m) The value to be attributed to the criterion is equal to the number of resident population in the range 0–500 m from the
site. Resident population was estimated by identifying the number of houses available and assigning each house a
number equal to 4 residents
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C1,1,2 Resident population (500–1000 m) As for the C1,1,1 criterion but considering the range 500–1000 m
C1,1,3 Resident population (1000–1500 m) As for the C1,1,1 criterion but considering the range 1000–1500 m
C1,2,1 Floating population (0–500 m) The value to be attributed to the criterion is equal to the number of floating population in the range 0–500 m from the
site. Floating population was estimated by identifying the productive activities (companies), schools, care centres for the
elderly, hospitals, and then to evaluate the number of users who frequent such facilities
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C1,2,2 Floating population (500–1000 m) As for the C1,2,1 criterion but considering the range 500–1000 m
C1,2,3 Floating population (1000–1500 m) As for the C1,2,1 criterion but considering the range 1000–1500 m
C2 Groundwater risk
C2,1 Groundwater vulnerability Groundwater vulnerability was evaluated using the GOD method (Foster et al., 2002) and the groundwater vulnerability
map available from the Province of Avellino. The GOD index can assume a value between 0 and 1: Very low (0.125); Low
(0.375); Moderate (0.625); High (0.875)
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C2,2,1 Thermo-mineral wells The value to be attributed to the criterion is equal to the number of thermo-mineral wells in the range 0–1000 m from
the site and located in permeable soils
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C2,2,2 Drinking water wells As for C2,2,1 criterion but considering drinking water wells
C2,2,3 Irrigation and industrial wells As for C2,2,1 criterion but considering irrigation and industrial wells
C2,2,4 Springs As for C2,2,1 criterion but considering springs
C3 Quality agriculture and land use
C3,1 Organic farms in 1000 m radius The value to be attributed to the criterion is equal to the number of organic farms in the range 0–1000 m from the site
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C3,2 Farmhouses in 1000 m radius As for C3,1 criterion but considering farmhouses
C3,3 Land use Land use was assessed with the land use map of the province of Avellino. Six classes have been defined: Permanent crops
(0.916); heterogeneous agricultural areas (0.750); Arable (0.583); Pasture (0.416); Shrubbery (0.250); Uncultivated
(0.083)
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C4 Traffic
C4 Interference of the additional traffic The value to be attributed to the criterion was made according to the following classes. Very Low (0.1) = when the site
with local roads position from motorway produces a very low interference with the local traffic. Low (0.3): when the route to get to
nearest motorway does not cross urban areas and the distance is less than 4 km. Low-medium (0.5): when the route to
get to nearest motorway does not cross urban areas and the distance is more than 4 km or when the route requires
marginal crossing of urban areas and the distance from the nearest motorway is less than 4 km. Medium (0.7): when the
route requires marginal crossing of urban areas and the distance from the nearest motorway is more than 4 km or the
distance is less than 4 km but there is a valuable risk of interference with roads of great traffic. High (0.9): when the
route interferes with the local road network
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C5 Economy
C5,1 Distance from motorway The value to be attributed to the criterion was calculated as the length of the distance between the site barycentre and
the road of the nearest motorway
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C5,2 Accessibility Is the site directly accessible? A site is considered accessible when there is no need to realize a new specific road. Two
classes are defined: YES (0.750); NO (0.250)
The criterion is to MAXMIZE
C6 Naturalistic value
C6 Protected areas Aren’t there Natura 2000 network areas in the range 0–2000 m from the site? YES (0.750); NO (0.250). The criterion is to
MAXMIZE
C7 Climate
C7,1 Rainfall The value to be attributed to the criterion is equal to the intensity of rain at the area where the site is located. The value
is measured in millimetres of rain per year
The criterion is to MINIMIZE
C7,2 Wind velocity The value to be attributed to the criterion is equal to the average value of wind velocity at the area where the site is
located. The value is measured in m/s
The criterion is to MINIMIZE

use of ArcViewÒ spatial analysis functions enables the processing
of the global ‘‘land use map of potentially suitable areas’’, as
reported in Fig. 6a. Even in this case, the high-resolution map is
shown in Fig. A.7 of Appendix A.
Results from Fig. 6a highlight the presence of 4 main areas that
can be potentially suitable for the hazardous waste landfills siting.
These areas are visible in Fig. 6b–e, respectively. The sum of the
surfaces of all these areas corresponds to 1.14% of the whole study
area. Whereas, the percentage of potentially suitable areas for non-
hazardous waste landfills is 4.32%. This latter result is in line with
what is present in literature (see Table 3) although the number of
excluding factors adopted in our study is higher (Kontos et al.,
2005; Delgado et al., 2008; Guiqin et al., 2009; Sener et al., 2010;
Eskandari et al., 2012a,b; Gorsevski et al., 2012). In general, the
higher the number of constraints, the lower the percentage value
of suitable areas. However, this statement is not always valid. In

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 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 11

Table 5
Alternatives matrix.

Alternatives Effective evaluation criteria and sub-criteria

C1,1,1 (m) C1,1,2 (m) C1,1,3 (m) C1,2,3 (m) C2,1 C2,2,4 C3,1 C3,3 C4 C5,1 (km) C5,2 C6 (km) C7,1 (mm/year) C7,2 (m/s)
S1 0 6 9 10 0.375 0 0 0.583 0.3 26.3 0.25 8.37 584.2 4.227
S2 3 33 48 0 0.375 4 0 0.75 0.1 8 0.25 4.94 1542.2 4.252
S3 3 54 60 15 0.625 5 0 0.916 0.1 27 0.25 3.13 879.8 1.727
S4 3 12 42 120 0.625 0 1 0.583 0.3 54.4 0.75 0.78 1479.6 2.785

Criteria: population presence (C1); Groundwater risk (C2); Agricultural value (C3); Traffic (C4); Economy (C5); Protected areas (C6); Climate (C7).
Sub-criteria:
d Resident population (C1,1); Floating population (C1,2); people in 0–500 m (C1,1,1); people in 500–1000 m (C1,1,2); people in 1000–1500 m (C1,1,3, C1,2,3).
d Vulnerability (C2,1; Very Low = 0.125; Low = 0.375; Moderate = 0,625; High = 0.875); Wells and Springs in 1000 m radius (C2,2); Springs (C2,2,4).
d Organic farms in 1000 m radius (C3,1); Land use (C3,3; Uncultivated = 0.083: Shrubbery = 0.25; Pasture = 0.416; Arable = 0.583; Heterogeneous agricultural areas = 0.75;
Permanent crops = 0.916).
d Distance from the motorway (C5,1, km); Accessibility (C5,2; a site was considered ‘‘accessible’’ when there was no need to widen the access road or to realize a new specific
road; accessible = 0.75, not accessible = 0.25).
d Rainfall (C7,1, mm/year) and Average wind velocity (C7,2, m/s).

C1 C1,1 C1,1,1

C2

CRITERIA C3 C4 C6 CRITERIA C1,2 CRITERIA C1,1,2

C1 –Population presence C1,1 – Resident population C1,1,1 – 0-500 m
C2 –Groundwater risk C5 C7 C1,2 – Floating population C1,1,2 – 500-1000 m
C3 –Agricultural value C1,1,3 – 1000-1500 m
C4 –Traffic
C5 –Economy C1,1,3
C6 –Protected areas
C7 –Climate C1 – Population presence C1,1 – Resident population
C
C1,2,1 C2,1 C2,2 2,2,2

C2,2,3 C2,2,4

CRITERIA C1,2,2 CRITERIA CRITERIA C2,2,1

C1,2,1 – 0-500 m C2,1 – Vulnerability C2,2,1 – Wells
C1,2,2 – 500-1000 m C2,2 – Wells and Springs Thermo-mineral
C1,2,3 – 1000-1500 m C2,2,2 – Wells
Drinking water use
C1,2,3
C2,2,3 – Wells
Irrigation and Industrial use
C1,2 – Floating population C2 – Groundwater risk C2,2,4 – Springs C2,2 – Wells and Springs

C3,3 C5,1 C7,1

C3,1 C5,2

CRITERIA C3,2 CRITERIA CRITERIA C7,2

C3,1 – Organic farms C5,1 – Distance C7,1 – Rainfall
C3,2 – Farmhouses C5,2 – Accessibility C7,2 – Average wind
C3,3 – Land use velocity

C3 – Agricultural value C5 – Economy C7 – Climate

Fig. 7. Priority scales for the definition of the criteria priorities to be subsequently used with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Paired Comparison Technique (PCT).

fact, results of Table 3 shows how the value of the percentage
depends first of all by the number of constraints and then by the
socio-economic and environmental conditions of the study area.
Table 3 also shows how the number of constraints is linked to
the advancement level of the country environmental legislation.
In this regard and differently from Italy, the studies reported in lit-
erature mainly refer to developing countries.
The land use map of Fig. 6a allows to address the subsequent
phase of micro-siting, thus avoiding the shortage of land for
waste disposal (Leão et al., 2004). It represents a useful tool
for spatial planning in the field of solid waste facilities
siting.
3.4. Phase 4. Identification of the siting alternatives (sites where to
construct a hazardous waste landfill) with a punctual verification of
the excluding criteria
Fig. 6f–i shows how the four siting alternatives (S1, S2, S3 and S4)
were identified starting from the macro-areas identified in the pre-
vious step. The identification was performed using the penalizing

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Table 6 Therefore, the alternatives matrix has four rows and fourteen col-
Local and global priorities of the evaluation criteria with the PSW and PCT methods. umns as shown in Table 5.
Criteria’s level Local priorities Global priorities
1st 2nd 3rd PSW PCT PSW PCT 3.7. Phase 7. Definition of the criteria priorities with the PSW tool and
C1 0.422 0.250 0.422 0.250 application of the AHP to the alternatives matrix weighted with the
C1,1 0.833 0.667 0.352 0.167 PSW tool, obtaining a first alternatives ranking
C1,1,1 0.735 0.500 0.259 0.083
C1,1,2 0.207 0.333 0.073 0.056
The criteria priorities to use with AHP (as well as SAW) were
C1,1,3 0.058 0.167 0.020 0.028
C1,2 0.167 0.333 0.070 0.083 defined using the Priority Scale Weighting tool, as shown in
C1,2,3 1.000 1.000 0.070 0.083 Fig. 7. In particular, Fig. 7 contains 9 priority scales. The first in
C2 0.221 0.214 0.221 0.214 the upper left defines the global priorities among the seven criteria.
C2,1 0.500 0.500 0.111 0.107 The second in the upper centre defines the local priorities between
C2,2 0.500 0.500 0.111 0.107
C2,2,4 1.000 1.000 0.111 0.107
the two sub-criteria of C1. The third in the upper right defines the
C3 0.093 0.143 0.093 0.143 local priorities among the three sub-criteria of C1,1. The fourth in
C3,1 0.250 0.333 0.023 0.048 the middle left defines the local priorities among the three sub-cri-
C3,3 0.750 0.667 0.070 0.095 teria of C1,2. The fifth in the middle centre defines the local priori-
C4 0.093 0.143 0.093 0.143
ties between the two sub-criteria of C2. The sixth in the middle
C5 0.038 0.054 0.038 0.054
C5,1 0.750 0.667 0.029 0.036 right defines the local priorities among the four sub-criteria of
C5,2 0.250 0.333 0.010 0.018 C2,2. The seventh in the lower left defines the local priorities among
C6 0.093 0.143 0.093 0.143 the three sub-criteria of C3. The eight in the lower centre defines
C7 0.038 0.054 0.038 0.054 the local priorities between the two sub-criteria of C5. Finally, the
C7,1 0.833 0.667 0.032 0.036
C7,2 0.167 0.333 0.006 0.018
ninth in the lower right defines the local priorities between the
two sub-criteria of C7.
All the priorities were directly defined by the authors. However,
they can be assigned in any other way, for instance using a stake-
and preferential criteria reported in Table 2 (see Facility F1) and a holders’ involvement approach as adopted in De Feo and De Gisi
punctual verification of the excluding criteria with data of major (2010).
details compared with those of the macro-siting phase was also Applying the AHP–PSW approach to the alternatives matrix
provided. Finally, a field inspection was performed. weighted with the calculated global priorities vector (see the sec-
ond to last column of Table 6) gave the normalized alternatives
ranking reported in Fig. 8a. The ranking list was: S1, S2, S3 and S4.
3.5. Phase 5. Definition of the criteria useful for the evaluation of the
The difference between the priority of the first and second best
siting alternatives (evaluation criteria)
alternatives was 55.4%. Thus, it was clear that S1 was the best site
where to localize a hazardous waste landfill using the AHP–PSW
Table 4 shows the full criteria set for the evaluation of hazard-
approach.
ous waste landfill sites. The following sub-criteria of the prelimin-
ary set of evaluation criteria were not effective because they had
no effective values (the values assigned to them were equal to 3.8. Phase 8. Definition of the criteria priorities with the PCT and
zero) for all the selected alternatives (see Fig. 3b): C1,2,1, C1,2,2, application of the SAW method to the alternatives matrix weighted
C2,2,1, C2,2,2, C2,2,3, C3,2. Thus, 20 and 14 were the size of the preli- with the PCT method, obtaining a second alternatives ranking
minary and actual set of evaluation criteria, respectively, register-
ing a 30% diminution in the number of evaluation criteria. The nine priority scales of Fig. 7 were used to perform the pair-
wise comparison of the PCT method following the rules described
in the methodological section. Applying the SAW–PCT approach to
3.6. Phase 6. Definition of the alternatives matrix the alternatives matrix weighted with the calculated global prior-
ities vector (see the last column of Table 6) gave the normalized
From Section 3.4 we know that four siting alternatives (S1, S2, S3 alternatives ranking reported in Fig. 8b. The ranking list was the
and S4) were identified, whereas from Section 3.5 we know that same obtained with the AHP–PSW approach: S1, S2, S3 and S4. How-
only fourteen evaluation criteria (and sub-criteria) were effective. ever, the difference between the priority of the first and second

1.0 1.0
0.9 0.9
0.8 0.8
0.7 0.7
0.6 0.6
0.5 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0.0 0.0
S1 S2 S3 S4 S1 S2 S3 S4
(a) (b)
Fig. 8. Comparison of the two global normalized alternatives rankings: (a) AHP–PSW; and (b) SAW–PCT.

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 G.D. Feo, S.D. Gisi / Waste Management xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 13

C1,1,1 C1,1,1
0.30 0.30
C7,2 C1,1,2 C7,2 C1,1,2
0.25 0.25

C7,1 0.20 C1,1,3 C7,1 0.20 C1,1,3

0.15 0.15

0.10 0.10
C6 C1,2,3 C6 C1,2,3
0.05 0.05

0.00 0.00

C5,2 C2,1 C5,2 C2,1

C5,1 C2,2,4 C5,1 C2,2,4

C4 C3,1 C4 C3,1
C3,3 C3,3
S1 (1.000) S2 (0.546) S3 (0.298) S4 (0.296) S1 (1.000) S2 (0.748) S3 (0.475) S4 (0.334)
(a) (b)
Fig. 9. Contribution of each evaluation criteria to the global alternatives ranking (the normalized values are reported in brackets) and normalized values obtained for each
criterion: (a) AHP–PSW; and (b) SAW–PCT.

best alternatives was 25.2% in this case. Analogously to the previ-
ous section, it was clear that S1 was the best site where to localize a
hazardous waste landfill using the SAW–PCT approach, but with a
slighter difference between the first and second choices in compar-
ison with the AHP–PSW approach.
3.9. Phase 9. Comparison of the two alternatives rankings and
selection of the best site
Having the ability to clearly identify the best alternative is fun-
damental in the case of hazardous waste landfills due to the great
social sensitivity of this issue. Applying the AHP–PSW and SAW–
PCT approaches to the alternatives matrix gave the same ranking
lists, as discussed in the previous section: S1, S2, S3 and S4.
The application of the AHP gave major differences between the
best alternative and second one as a consequence of the major sen-
sitivity of the priority scale to define the priorities between the
evaluation criteria compared with the classic PCT (which only
use the values 0, 0.5 and 1 to define the priorities among criteria).
This is in line with the findings of Demesouka et al. (2013). In par-
ticular, Fig. 9 shows the contribution of each evaluation criteria to
the global alternatives ranking. C1,1,1 (resident population in 0–
500 m) was the most influencing sub-criteria with the AHP–PSW
approach; while, C4 was the most influencing criteria with the
SAW–PCT approach.
necessarily consider all the solid waste facilities both
already present and future in a sort of systematic approach
to localization.
 The issue of obtaining sites evaluations of a specific facility
has to be coupled with the issue of not wasting land appro-
priate to facilitate other types of waste management
options.
 Mondy and Noe (2008) pairwise comparison technique can
be implemented as a criterion weights elicitation approach
in GIS based suitability analyses.
 In the performed case study, the use of the Priority Scale
(PSW) as a weighting tool was useful to easier define the
priorities of the evaluation criteria and this came out in
the final ranking list obtained using the Analytic Hierarchy
Process.
The presented procedure is particularly suitable for public insti-
tutions and companies operating in the solid waste sector and can
be integrated with the other methods available in literature.
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank Dr. Sacha A. Berardo for his English
revision.

4. Conclusion Appendix A. Supplementary material

The following outcomes based on the obtained results can be
pointed out:
 In order to minimize the shortage of land for waste disposal,
a new screening phase before the macro-siting step (i.e. fea-
sibility analysis) should be directly inserted in the standard
siting procedure.
 The new phase is aimed at producing the land use map of
potentially suitable areas (by means of a spatial intersection
of the data estimated in the feasibility analysis) for the solid
waste facilities and consequently to address the next phase
of micro-siting (i.e. spatial multi-criteria analysis) identify-
ing the alternative sites in a proper mode.
 Differently from literature, the siting of a specific type of
plant (in this case, the hazardous waste landfill) must
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2014.05.
028.
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