Applying Fuzzy logic and the point count system to select landfill sites

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Geotechnical Engineering
• Applied Mathematics

Background:

• Solid waste management poses significant environmental challenges for municipalities globally.
• Finding suitable sanitary landfill sites is complex due to numerous criteria and varying site sophistication.
• Current methods for landfill site selection can be intricate and resource-intensive.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a simplified classification system for sanitary landfill site suitability.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of a novel fuzzy approach for site selection.
• To provide a more accessible method for municipal solid waste disposal planning.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a recently advocated fuzzy approach for evaluating site suitability.
• Developed a simple fuzzy classification system based on specific attribute point values.
• Employed normalized averages of attributes and evaluated using generated random datasets.

Main Results:

• The proposed fuzzy classification system demonstrated encouraging results.
• The classifier provides a viable alternative to traditional fuzzy-based ranking methods.
• The simplified approach simplifies the complex criteria for landfill site selection.

Conclusions:

• The developed fuzzy classifier offers an efficient and simplified method for sanitary landfill site selection.
• This approach can aid municipalities in overcoming environmental challenges associated with solid waste disposal.
• Further validation with diverse datasets can enhance the robustness of this simplified classification system.