Evaluation and selection of decision-making methods to assess landfill mining projects

Area of Science:

• Environmental Engineering
• Resource Management
• Economic Analysis

Background:

• Landfill mining offers potential for secondary raw material recovery.
• Existing assessment procedures lack comprehensive multi-criteria evaluation.
• The LAMIS - Landfill Mining Austria pilot project initiated fundamental studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a robust decision-making procedure for evaluating landfill mining project feasibility.
• To address the absence of standardized multi-criteria assessment methods.
• To compare landfill mining against continued landfill aftercare.

Main Methods:

• Utilized multiple attribute decision-making (MADM) frameworks.
• Developed a tiered assessment structure (preliminary and main).
• Selected and detailed Cost-Utility Analysis (CUA) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP).

Main Results:

• Identified requirements and criteria for assessment methods.
• Classified the decision problem: landfill mining vs. retaining landfill in aftercare.
• Both CUA and AHP present distinct advantages and disadvantages for landfill mining assessment.

Conclusions:

• No single MADM method is universally superior for landfill mining feasibility studies.
• Integrating CUA or AHP with single-criteria methods (e.g., Net Present Value) may offer a more comprehensive approach.
• Further research into hybrid decision-making models is warranted for optimizing landfill mining project evaluation.