HAWASSA UNIVERSITY

WONDOGENET COLLEGE OF
FORESTRY AND NATURAL RESOURCE
AND DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHIC
INFORMATION SCIENCE
(GIS)
SENIER SEMINAR RESEARCH ON: APPLICATION OF GIS AND RS IN THE SOLID
WASTE DISPOSAL SITE SELECTION IN THE CASE OF ARSI NEGELE, ETHIOPIA

BY: ABEBAW KENAW

ADVISOR: DAWIT ATSBHA

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1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................2
1.1 BACK GROUND OF THE STUDY.................................................................................................2
1.2 Statement of the problem.................................................................................................................4
1.3. General objective..............................................................................................................................4
1.3.1 Specific objective........................................................................................................................4
1.4 Research question..............................................................................................................................5
1.5. Scope of the Study............................................................................................................................5
1.6 Limitations of the Study....................................................................................................................5
1.7 Significance of the study...................................................................................................................5
1.8 Organization of the Study..................................................................................................................5
2.1 General concepts and definition of terms...........................................................................................6
2.2 solid waste management in developed countries...............................................................................5
2.3 Solid waste management in developing countries..............................................................................6
2.4 Source of solid waste and solid waste management techniques.........................................................7
2.4.1 Source of solid waste..................................................................................................................7
3. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AREA...............................................................................................7
3.1. Location............................................................................................................................................7
Figure 1 Location map of the study area.................................................................................................8
3.2 Materials and Methods......................................................................................................................8
3.2.1 Data sources and types................................................................................................................8
3.3 Methods.............................................................................................................................................9
4.1 Data analysis methods.......................................................................................................................9
4. RESULT AND DISSCUSSION......................................................................................................................9
4.1 Land Fill Site Selection Criteria........................................................................................................9
4.2 Road Networks................................................................................................................................10
4.3 Calculating Factor Weights and Overlaying Identified Suitable Sites.............................................10
4.4 Landfill Suitability Map....................................................................................................................11
5. CONCLUSION, SUMMERY AND RECOMMENDATIONS.........................................................12
5.1 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................12
5.2 Recommendation............................................................................................................................12
6. Reference...............................................................................................................................................13

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACK GROUND OF THE STUDY

According to the united states environmental protection agency (USEPA, 2005) solid waste is
defined as any garbage, refuse, sludge, from a waste water treatment plant, water supply
treatment plant or air dried materials, including solid, liquid, semisolid or contained gaseous
materials resulting from industrial, commercial mining and agricultural operations and from
community activities. So, it’s important to selection of new disposal centers. The suitability of
selected site for disposal center affects the amount of generated waste and the cost transmission.

Waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or it is worthless, defective and
unwanted or unusable material that is mainly originated from community of that area. The rapid
growth of the world population and the urbanization process are making the non-renewable
resources to be in shortage and the disposal of effluent and also it leads to serious environmental
population and health-related problems in case of direct damping of waste in to water bodies,
open and abandoned lands without proper treatment of waste. The technique of getting rid of
those waste in an economic and environmentally friendly approach is called “sanitary land
filling” (Tchnobanoglas and Kreith, 2002).

The problem of waste disposal, especially in the urban center has become one of the most
important intractable environment problems facing urban management in Ethiopia today.

There have to been several increases the volume of solid wastes generated daily due to the
increasingly rate of population growth in urban center, industrialization, urbanization, and
generally economic development (onoker horaye, 1995). As result, the objective of solid waste
management is to collect transport, treat, waste reduction, and dispose the waste and
improvement in city’s environment and aesthetics (onoker horaye, 1995).

1.2 Statement of the problem

As a consequence of population growth and development activities, high amounts of household,
urban solid wastes are generated. High rate of wastes were facing problem of their disposal and
have very high potential effect to pollute environment such as surface water, ground water, land
(soil) and air. Public health was also highly affected by the uncontrolled solid waste generation

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and disposal. In Ethiopia most diseases relate to poor environmental cleanliness and water
pollution. It is lack of suitable waste disposal site, public latrine and general clean mechanism in
the area can affect the community’s economic and social activities directly or indirectly
(Tsegaye, 2006). However, finding a good waste disposal area is difficult since land is a scarce
resource. An increasing environmental awareness, increasing cost, community and political
opposition and public health concerns have made choosing suitable land for landfills quite
difficult.

In the study area waste materials are disposed in wrong way for instance on the street, in
recreational areas, in urban green area and etc.. Places are mostly full of garbage. This
circumstance most probably resulted in health problems and environmental crisis. The problem
is progressive which urgently need counter measure to control and manage west disposal. From
possible measure suitable site selection for west disposal is crucially important. To do so GIS is a
power full tool since it carry out the analysis of spatial and related data with user define model.
(Din et al., 2008).

1.3. General objective

The general objective of the study is to identify the suitable site for solid waste disposal in case
of Arsi negele by using GIS and RS.

1.3.1 Specific objective

The specific objectives of this study are:

1. To analyze suitable areas according to the criteria selected for solid waste disposal in the study
area.

2. To map suitable disposal site in the study area.

3. To assess the available resource for solid waste disposal site selection.

1.4 Research question

The question under the study may include the following:

1 What are the necessary factors shall be considered to select suitable solid waste disposal site?

2 how suitable disposal site selection can be identified?

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3 how waste disposal site selection can become improvement in the study area?

1.5. Scope of the Study

The study is limited to suitable solid waste disposal site selection in arsi negele. It focuses on
some technical aspects of solid waste disposal site selection. The issues under consideration in
this study are only solid wastes. The study was used land sate 8 at years of 2018 for land use land
cover preparation system and this preparation have analyzed by using QGISGIS software.

1.6 Limitations of the Study

This study was might reflect some problems. Because of unavailability of data for the research,
lack of budget and shortage of time for data processed, analyzed and also field observation.

1.7 Significance of the study

The main importance of this study to improve the environmental pollution and health problems
due to the generated waste from different sources. These problems can be satisfied by evaluating
the existing waste disposal and by identifying the suitable site for soil waste disposal in Arsi
negele town. This finding of the study area become a great significance especially, for the
community these who are lived in Arsi negele town. , because the waste generated in that area
can affect specially the peoples these who lived in Arsi negele town. Finally, the outcome of the
paper would be a proper site selection for waste deposit for effective planning and management
of solid waste in Arsi negele town.

1.8 Organization of the Study

This research is divided into five chapters. The first chapter provides the introduction to the
study including background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study,
research questions, scope, significance and limitation of the study. The second chapter presents
review of related literatures, mainly including, the concept and types of SWMS, the concept and
process of landfill sitting, applications of GIS and RS in landfill sitting and different criteria for
landfill sitting. The third chapter deals with the description of the study area as well as the
materials and methods used in the study. The fourth chapter presents the analysis and the final
most suitable site selected for the study area. Chapter five presents conclusions and
recommendations.

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2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 General concepts and definition of terms

Solid waste means any garbage, refuse, sludge, and other discarded solid materials, including
solid waste materials resulting from industrial, commercial, and agricultural operations, and from
community activities, but does not include dissolved material in domestic sewage
(Tchobanoglous et al., 1977). Similarly, according to Sasikumar and Krishna (2009), Solid waste
is used to describe non-liquid materials from domestic, trade, commercial, agricultural and
industrial activities, and from public services. It includes of both solid and liquid waste but not
include waste water. On the other hand, it comprises all the wastes arising from human and
animal activities that are normally solid and discarded as useless or unwanted (Tchobanoglous et
al., 1977).

In most cities and towns of developing world in appropriate handling and disposal of municipal
solid waste is the most visible cause of environmental degradation i.e. air pollution, soil
contamination, surface and ground water pollution etc. resulted from improper solid waste
disposal (WHO 1996).

2.2 solid waste management in developed countries.

Shortage of land for waste disposal and in appropriate land fill site is one of the biggest problems
in most of large urban areas in the world which has it negative impact and human and
environment (Mefaden, 2003).there for more efforts are need to overcome this problem that
leads different agencies and establishments to find common limitations to protect human and
environment from consequences (friendman1998).

Developed countries treat sustainable development as an environmental concept planning the

emphasis on inter-generational equity focusing future needs (carter, 2001).

2.3 Solid waste management in developing countries.

Solid waste management is becoming a big challenge for the cities administrations in many
developing countries mainly because of the degree of rapid urbanization and increasing
number of population growth which in turn have greatly accelerated the municipal solid waste
generation rate in the urban environment (Zhang et al., 2010; Guerrero et al.,
2013).Waste generation has been rising with increasing wealth and economic growth. In

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developing countries, the waste generation is rising rapidly and may keep increasing in quantum
as a consequence of improvement in standard of living, economic activities and population
growth (UN-HABITAT, 2010b). Because of, lack of waste disposal and inappropriate landfill
site are one of the biggest problems in most of large urban areas in the world which has its
negative impact on human and environment (Mcfaden, 2003).

2.4 Source of solid waste and solid waste management techniques

2.4.1 Source of solid waste
When the population is increasing due to different reasons in urban area, the waste generate
become increasing from day to day.

The following are the major sources of generation of waste:-

 Solid waste from residential areas, institutional/community areas
 Solid waste from vegetables markets
 Solid waste from hotels, and restaurants
 Solid waste from commercial areas
 Biomedical waste from hospitals
 Waste from domestic such as like Food-related solid wastes

3. DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY AREA

3.1. Location
Negele Tarsi (Arsi Negele) is a town in southeastern Ethiopia. Located in the west Arsi Zone of
the Oromia Region on the paved highway north of Shashamen and at distance of 277km far from

Addis Ababa. it has a longitude and latitude of 7°21′N 38°42′E and an elevation of 2043 meters
above sea level.

Location map of study area

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Figure 1 Location map of the study area

3.2 Materials and Methods

3.2.1 Data sources and types

To achieve the objectives primary data and secondary data were used for this study. The primary

data was collected as Field observation GPS surveying and Google earth. The secondary data

was collected as Slope data was generated from DEM data, Satellite image was downloading

from USGS and Road data collected from existing ethio road shapfile and Googl earth.

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3.3 Methods
There are different types of GIS spatial operation tools that are used to achieve the objectives of
this study. The methods was used include buffering, overlay, GIS-Based-Multi Criteria
Evaluation Methodology how each of these has been operated were outlined as follows.

4.1 Data analysis methods

Different methods for waste disposal sites suitability analysis can be takes place. The waste
disposal site selection factors were analyzing using RS and GIS techniques. The study were
consider the following factors like land use/ land cover, built up area, road, protected area, urban
area and Slope As important factor that greatly affect the location of solid waste dumping site
And all those factors were processing such as Reclassifying, Buffering, and giving value
according to their importance for waste disposal site selection and finally those criteria were
overplayed and produced a final map where it is suitable for the purpose of waste disposal site

selection.

4. RESULT AND DISSCUSSION

This part discusses the analysis and presentation of different data sets that were used to select
most suitable solid waste disposal sites. In this study, most suitable sites were determined for arsi
negele town solid waste landfill by using the Geographical Information System and MCDA
method. Landfill must be situated and designed to meet the necessary conditions for preventing
pollution of environment and other resources. Similarly, a landfill site should be kept as far away
as possible from population density, for reducing impact on public health. On the other hand, the
landfill site should be placed not much far from existing roads for saving road development,
transportation, and collection costs. For this study some suitability criteria were used (distance
from protected areas, roads network ,urban area land use and land slope) were used based on the
relevant Ethiopian Environmental Protection Regulations, in addition to international practices
that account for environmental, economic and social factors.

4.1 Land Fill Site Selection Criteria

the first step landfill sitting process is identifying site requirements or criteria. Since the main
objective of this study is selecting most suitable landfill site, criteria used should minimize

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surrounding environmental, economic and social impacts. The following criteria were used to

meet the above objectives.

Table 1 Landfill Selection Criteria

No Spatial data Layer name criteria

1 Road network road Between 400-1000 Meter

2 slope slope Less than 13%

3 Lulc type Lulc Agricultural land and shrub

lands
4 Urban area urban 400-800 meter away

5 Protected area Protected area 1000-1600 meter away

Badalona and Busu 2010, Tirusew et al.2013, Adam et.al 2013, Hasan et al.2009.

4.2 Road Networks

Road is play a key prominent in the social and economic wellbeing of a society. The road
distribution of the study area is parcel distributed. The following map shows the two main class
of road such as main road and minor road the main road to shashamen is pass through on center
part of the study area. And the source of the major road is extracted from ethio shapfile by arsi
boundary and the minor road are manually digitized from google earth.

4.3 Calculating Factor Weights and Overlaying Identified Suitable Sites

The site selection for solid waste disposal dumping site involves comparison of different options
based on environmental, social and economic impacts. Based on impact on surrounding
environment, different weights were assigned to all the parameters. The larger the weight, the
more important is the criterion in the overall utility.

factor class value Level of influence

suitability
slope <3% 4 Suitable
3-7% 3 Moderately
7-13% 2 Less Suitable 20%
>13 1 Unsuitable

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Urban area <400m 1 Unsuitable
400m-600m 2 Less Suitable
600m-800m 3 Moderately 13%
>800m 4 Suitable

Distance from <1000m 1 Unsuitable

Protected area 1000m-1300m 2 Less Suitable
1300m-1600m 3 Moderately 18%
>1600m 4 Suitable

Distance from <400m 1 Highly Suitable

road 400m-700m 2 Moderately
700m-1000m 3 Suitable
>1000 4 Less Suitable 33%

Land use
Built-up 1 Unsuitable
Shrub 2 Less Suitable 16%
agriculture 3 Suitable

Badalona and Busu 2010, Tirusew et al.2013, Kontos et al 2005 ,Adam et.al 2013, Hasan et al.2009.

Table 8 Weight of suitable solid waste site selection factor

4.4 Landfill Suitability Map
The figure below shows has four classes. Out of the total area of the town 0.14 %( 0.847327516
ha) fall under highly suitable area for landfill site. The moderately suitable area covers an area of
23.32% (136.0484168ha).The area which covers 12.12% 70.71677798 (ha)is under less suitable
class and the remaining 64.4% (378.7711547ha)under un suitability. By using the stated criteria,
suggested areas as suitable for solid waste dumping site located on the SW of the town. These
areas are mainly shrub lands and agricultural land.

Table 8 Overall Landfill Suitability

Level of suitability rank Area(ha) %

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Highly suitable 4 0.847327516 0.14%
Moderate suitable 3 136.0484168 23.32%
Less suitable 2 70.71677798 12.12%
Un suitable 1 378.7711547 64.4%
total 586.166 100

5. CONCLUSION, SUMMERY AND RECOMMENDATIONS.

5.1 Conclusion

Landfill site selection is a complex procedure which involves evaluating numerous factors like,
physical, environmental and socio-economic factors. The main purpose of establishing landfills
is to protect the safety of the environment by minimizing effects on resources and community
health. This study considered five criteria, namely slope, land use/ land cover, protected area,
road, urban area proximity, for proper landfill site selection in arsi negele town. The output maps
were divided into four classes from highly suitable to un suitable areas. A method which
integrates GIS is used for the analysis. The analysis has taken important factors to minimize the
negative impacts of landfills. These are slope, land use/ land cover, protected area, and road
proximity as determining factor in order to find appropriate site for solid waste dumping site.
The results have shown that four sites were suggested as highly suitable for solid waste landfills.
The sites are easy to access and manage for disposal of solid wastes.

5.2 Recommendation
The researchers recommend other factors for the future studies of waste disposal site selection.
This study considered a few of socio-environmental factors for waste disposal site selection due
to lack of data, time and also lack of budget. But, factors such as slope, protected area, road ,
urban area Lulc area, also influence landfill site selection and therefore, for the future study
should be included as evaluating criteria. With these factors, the selected landfill sites should be
evaluated.

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The selected waste disposal site was only for non-hazardous solid waste. Therefore, hazardous
wastes should not be deposited in this site. Hazardous wastes from health institutions and from
house-holds should be separated from non-hazardous solid waste before disposal. Hence,
separate landfill should be selected for such hazardous solid waste as sitting parameters and
construction of landfill for hazardous solid waste is quite different from that of non-hazardous
waste.

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