© 2023 IJRTI | Volume 8, Issue 7 | ISSN: 2456-3315

Site Suitability Analysis for Urban Dumping Landfill

in the South West District of Delhi, Using Geospatial
Technology
1
Payal Mahato, & 2Dr.Supriya Srivastava

Research Scholar1st, Assistant Professor2nd

1. Humanities and Social Sciences, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Wakhnaghat, Solan, Himachal
Pradesh, India
2. Department of Management Sciences, Shoolini University, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract - Selecting a proper land for the dumping of waste disposal material in urban areas is a big task for
administrations and municipalities. This research idea focused to select a proper landfill dumping site location for waste
material in urban cities using Geographical Information Technology (GIS)and give suggestions to promote awareness
and training camps for municipal workers and students to keep urban cities clean and hygienic for testing we had taken
South-West district of Delhi. For the identification of the dumping site we used 5 major criteria, these are roads,
railways, waterways, buildings, and places which were later assigned weights according to their importance using a
weighted overlay tool in ArcGIS software 10.4 versions and divided into 3 categories i.e. not suitable, less suitable,
and suitable land which indicates that only 6.38% land is suitable for dumping waste material in South-West district of
Delhi which mostly covers the south-western side of this district because population and construction are less there a
comparison to other areas. Land use and Land cover map were prepared for the verification of the urban dumping site
on which only open land where can use as a dumping site construction cover the total 1.01%, (2022) of the land. The
result of this study could be used as a preliminary input for further detailed study and the information supports
concerned authorities to improve waste management for urban cities based on field verification.

Keywords-Site Suitability Analysis, Dumping Sites, Awareness, Geospatial Technology

I.INTRODUCTION
Making urban areas pollution free and promoting a healthy living environment is considered one of the goals of sustainable
development. This proposed study aims to focus on waste disposal management for urban areas, as one of the important steps
for both present and future-generation communities. Since irregular ways of garbage dumping result in several negative
consequences on human health and habitat, there is a need for suitable management. Degrading the natural environment by
releasing toxic gases causes unhygienic conditions not only around the dumping location but also affecting the residential
areas of the city. Globally, solid waste has become an increasing public environmental problem for many cities and towns. It
is also enhanced by socio-economic factors such as rapid population growth, urban expansion, industrialization, and
continuous migration of the bulk of the population from rural to urban areas (Mereki et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2009; Zohoori
and Ghani, 2017). In a developing country like India, managing the waste disposal is a big challenge as nearly half of the
world's populationis living here, and the pressure on land is higher, which can be seen in the form of high population density
and congestion and crowding situation of cities particularly, large and metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata,
etc. Solid and liquid wastes emitted by domestic and private business centers, public market centers, prisons, and public
institutions are the primary sources of urban pollutants. These anthropogenic pollutants have an impact on the urban
environment and residents' health (Bona et al., 2022). Talking about the capital of India, Delhi, there are huge numbers of the
population are living because of the increasing employment opportunities. In the mineral-rich and industrial regions, the
attractive infrastructure and services provided by urban areas cause a high density of population in certain regions. Delhi has a
density of 11,297 people per sq km, which endanger natural resources like rivers, and forest and eventually cause pollution
problem. It is very difficult to manage cities’ environment by managing and finding out a suitable dumping site for an area
like Delhi, but emerging technologies like geospatial are making it possible now to find a proper site for waste disposal for
over-crowded and metropolitan city areas. Geospatial technology is also able to find existing dumping locations whether it is
residential areas of the cities or land under construction or dumping sites. The word ‘waste’ represents any material generated
by human activity, which has a detrimental impact on the environment and human health. Municipal solid waste disposal site
selection justifies distinct attention because land filling is still the most common mode of waste disposal in many countries
(Yadeta et al., 2021). The solid wastes released from municipal and residential areas are causing the contamination of public
sources of water, affecting the communities’ health (Bona et al., 2022).

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1.1 Problem Statement

The problems which have been observed in several parts of the city areas are as follows –
• The first and foremost problem is there is no proper area for dumping garbage, however, some open spaces are
located in construction sites that are used as garbage dumping areas, which results in city pollution.
• Secondly, in several urban areas, there are no proper dustbins available near every residential area or colony, some
dustbin could be seen but most of them are not covered and garbage are very frequently spread by wild animals,
and these situations again cause city pollution.
• Next, in several cities, open drainage and sewerage systems are available which are used as open dumping garbage
which eventually blocks the channels.
• Municipal corporation officers should have control over the sweepers who are responsible for collecting garbage
door-to-door, regularly. In addition, they should be aware to find a suitable place where they throw. And finally,
there should be a proper management system for solid waste materials.
The problem which has been addressed is solid waste disposal management. To some extent, this issue can be resolved with the
help of technology and by promoting some awareness activities for local people. The study aims to focus the attention on city
management by making a proper location of garbage dumping sites. As an important step in this way, every city has a proper
location for dumping sites, which should be under the consideration of the district government.

1.2 Aims and Objectives

• Identify the proper dumping site for urban areas with the help of using geospatial technology
• Preparation of Land use & Land cover classification map to find out the open spaces or waste land which can use
forthe construction of urban dumping site.
• Given suggestion to organizing the workers engaged in garbage collection and proving them a proper
trainingprogram to make them regular towards the activities, related to garbage collection and sanitation.

II. MATERIALS & METHODOLOGY

For the completion of this research, has selected the South-West Districts of Delhi, because Delhi is the capital of India with a
high population (1.68 Cr, 2011 census) and density (11, 320 per sq, 2011 census). Therefore, it’s a difficult task to manage
solid waste disposal, which comes from urban and industrial areas of Delhi NCR. For the analysis of site suitability planning in
South-West Delhi, the secondary data collected from the open source platform, which later on analyzed in ArcGIS 10.4
software.

2.1 Study Area

The South West Districts of N.C.T. of Delhi are located in the South West part of Delhi. It is located between latitudes 280 40′
and 280 29’ and longitude between 760 50’ and 770 14’. The district occupies an area of approximately 420 sq km inhabited
by a population of 2,292,958. There are 1,246,046 males and 1,046,912 females. There are 77 villages in the district. The
district is divided into three administrative subdivisions – Kapashera Sub Division, Najafgarh Sub Division, and Dwarka
Sub Division. There are three administrative Tehsil – Kapashera, Najafgarh, and Dwarka. The south-West District has the
distinction of having the biggest colony in Asia at Dwarka.

Figure1: Location Map of Study Area

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However, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is one of the largest municipal bodies serving approximately 11 million
people and catering to the basic civic services of the people of Delhi. The Municipal Corporation has been divided according to
the main regions of Delhi as follows:
• North Delhi Municipal Corporation: it includes all the areas in North and North-West Delhi and Central Delhi.
• South Delhi Municipal Corporation: Except for the Delhi Cantt area, all the areas under South and
South-West Delhi and West Delhi are included in it.
• East Delhi Municipal Corporation: Regions of North East and East Delhi come under its umbrella.

So, the waste disposal management in South-West Delhi is carried out by South Delhi Municipal Corporation, which included
a total of 24 active vehicles (source: SDMC) for collection, segregation, and transportation of municipal solid waste. The total
solid waste produced in the whole of Delhi in Tones per day is 11144 in TPD. Similarly, the total solid waste produced
bySouth-WestDelhiis3600TPD as per the report of DSWM, (2020).

Dumping Site Selection

Factors Selected

Road Network Railway Waterway Building Cities/Town

ArcGIS Weighted Overlay QGIS

Google Earth Pro Field Verification Existing Dumping Site

LULC

Suitable Waste Disposal Site Analyzed

Fig2: Flow Chart for Research Methodology

2.2 Variables Lists

Table1: Variables selected for Research

Variables Weights(Importance)
Road 30
Building 20
Places/Towns 20
Waterway 20
Railways 10

For this research, five major variables were selected which would be considered important factors based on the review and
literature. These Variables are roads, buildings, places/cities, water bodies, and railways on which are assigned more weight
to the road which is playing an important role in transferring this waste disposal from one place to another place. Then
buildings, places, and waterways are assigned equal weights as per expert consultations. Similarly, fewer weights are assigned
to railway lines because it is constructed a few kilometers far from residential areas.

3.3 Data Analysis & Sources

In this study, the base map of the study area has been prepared with the help of open-source satellite imagery and the admin

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boundary of South West Districts which has been extracted from India Districts Boundary downloaded from DivaGIS and all
the analysis part were completed by using ArcGIS 10.4, QGIS 3.6, and Google Earth Pro software’s . All factors are taken for
this research study based on the literature review and discussion with the experts. All factors of site suitability analysis
of dumping sites have been downloaded from BBBikes Open Street map website which included roads, railways, waterways,
buildings, and places/towns used to identify the proper dumping site located in South West District of Delhi.

Table2: Data and Their Sources used for this Research

Data Sources
Road Bbbikes OSM
Railways
Waterways
Building
Places/Towns
Land Use and Land Cover Types ESRILULC10mresolution
Solid waste Collection centers GSDL Delhi
Existing Landfill GSDL Delhi
Admin Boundary DivaGIS

Table 3: Software Used for Analysis

S. No. Software
1 ArcGIS 10.4

2 Google Earth Pro

3 QGIS 3.6

III. RESULTS & DISCUSSION

Results and discussion include data preparation and analysis of the major controlling layers for the selection of waste dumping
sites.
As per the standard guidelines of the municipal waste authority and literature review, we select some major factors for the
identification of waste disposal sites for urban cities. These factors are roads, railways, waterways, buildings, and
places/towns. However slope is also an important factor but in this research idea we didn’t take slope as a factor because
Delhi is coming under a plain area, so slope doesn’t count as an important indicator for completely plain areas. The land
use and land cover Classification data are helpful to find out the location of existing garbage dumping locations whether it is
situated under construction areas or far away from these areas.

3.1 Road Network &Distance to Road

The road is an important factor for loading and transferring this waste disposal from local dumping areas to major dumping
areas which are situated outside of construction areas. According to the standard formulated by Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) for sitting landfills, areas less than 100 m from the road are unsuitable for landfill, distances from the road
greater than 2000 m are less suitable, and a distance between 100 m and 1000 m may be considered suitable which is in
tandem with the study of Allen et al. (2002) who affirmed that a distance greater than 1 km from main roads and highways
should be avoided. This indicates that easy accessibility to the road is important for the movement of waste disposal vehicles.
Fig. 3 vividly shows the distance to a road map for South-West Delhi.
As per the distance from the road we found that 48.86% of areas are coming under completely unsuitable land, 39.59% less
suitable land, and only 11.53 % areas are coming under suitable land because it is far away from constriction areas of South-
West Delhi.

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Figure3: Distance from Road Network Figure4: Distance from Railways Map
Map of South-West Delhi of South-West Delhi

3.2 Railways & Distance from Railways

Waste materials should not be thrown or disposed of near railway stations as this will pollute the nearest environment. Thus,
we included railway lines as an important factor here and data downloaded from the bbbikes website and distance from road
extracted from Euclidean distance in ArcGIS environment. Fig. 4 shows that the eastern side of South-west Delhi is not
suitable land for the location of garbage dumping sites which covers 48.61% of the land, 29.22% of areas are coming under
less suitable land, and as per the analysis of distance from the railway the western part of South-West district of Delhi is
coming under suitable zone for construction of dumping site which accounts 22.15% areas due to population concentration
are less in these areas and doesn’t found any railway lines.

3.3 Waterways and Water Bodies

Waterways include rivers and drainages of South-West Delhi. As it is an important source of irrigation and consists of huge
biodiversity. So, waste disposal locations should also be situated far from water bodies or rivers. Based on the standard
formulated by the EPA landfill manual (2003) areas at a distance lesser than 160 m are unsuitable, areas that are between
distances of 160 m–480 m are less suitable, areas within a distance of 480 m–960 m are moderately suitable and areas that are
distance greater than 960 m are highly suitable.
Figure; 5 shows the waterways map of South-West Delhi, based on this analysis 47.73% of areas covering water bodies areas
which are not considered suitable land for any dumping sites similarly, 36.03 % of land are coming under less suitable, and
16.02% of areas can be considered as a suitable land for dumping waste material which is far away from every freshwater bodies.

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Fig: Distances from Waterways Fig: 6 Distances from Building Map

Map of South-West Delhi of South-West Delhi

3.4 Buildings and Distance from building

The building layer included a settlement and residential areas of the population. So, if any garbage dumping sites are located
nearest to these areas they would continue polluting the environment of the nearest residential areas. So, every colony should
have a dustbin facility separately for dry and wet waste disposal. The building layers were downloaded from the bbbikes website
and distance from the building was extracted from the ArcGIS desktop. According to the standard formulated by EPA for sitting
landfills, areas that are at distances less than 300 m to the residence are unsuitable, areas at distances between 300 m–500 m are
less suitable, areas that are at distances between 500 m–800 m are moderately suitable and areas that are at distances greater than
800 m are highly suitable. This is a result of the need to maintain the aesthetics of residential areas, and equally, prevent air
pollution and other health intrusion phenomena that would be caused by the dumping of solid waste (Fidelis et al., 2019).
The analysis of fig.6 distance from the building indicates that 47.06 % area is coming under construction land, so it is not
suitable for any garbage dumping location, 32.29% land is considered here less suitable due to some sparse building
construction and 20.63 % of land may be considered as a suitable land due to far distance from buildings.

3.5 Places and Towns/Cities

Places included the major cities and towns of urban areas of South-West Delhi. Landfills are to be sited far from cities, cities, and
human residences to avoid the devastating effect of pollution. This is the responsibility of planers and experts in waste
management to find any areas or land which is coming under waste that can be used as dumping sites for waste materials. The
calculation of the distance from places done in the ArcGIS desktop indicates that 43.23% of the land is completely coming under
construction areas. Similarly, 41.11% of lands are coming under less suitable dumping sites, and 15.64% of areas we can consider
as suitable land for dumping site which is far away from cities and towns.

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Figure: 7 Distance From Places Map of South-West Delhi

3.6 Site Suitability Analysis of South-West Delhi

These various factors are overlay to each other based on their importance and processed with the help of overlay weighted tool in
ArcGIS software 10.4 versions and later on classified into three categories i.e. not suitable, less suitable, and suitable dumping
site. Below fig. 8 analysis has showing that the dumping site land is situated outside the construction, cities, towns, places, and
high road network areas.

Figure8: Map Showing the Site Suitability Analysis of Dumping Land of

South-West Delhi

The overall results showed that 36.90% of areas are not suitable for dumping waste material or dumping site construction. Similarly,
56.70% of areas are coming under less suitable land only 6.38% of areas can use as garbage dumping sites, which accounts very
small area for the management of waste dumping material in the South-West District of Delhi. Existing garbage dumping site data
has been (GDLS Delhi, 2022) used to verify all these dumping locations, and found that all existing garbage dumping sites are
coming under construction land area which is not good for those residential communities who are residing near these dumping
locations.

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3.7 Land Use and Land Covers Analysis

Land use is crucial to sorting out public fracas of the approval of the unneeded location of landfill amenities (Adewumi et al.,
2016) and a prime indicator of spatial impact extent (Adewumi et al., 2017b). Hence, the objective of considering this criterion is
to avoid the sitting of a landfill in areas with high productivity or development. Land use and Land cover are also helpful to find
land such as bare, empty, and open spaces which is not used by humans for construction.

Table4: Land use and Land Cover area in Sq Km

LULC Area Sq Percent(2018) Percent(2022)
KM(2018) Area Sq
Km(2022)
Agriculture 176.718 62.93% 170.108 60.58%
Vegetation 2.083 0.74% 4.058 1.44%
Built-Up area 95.023 33.84% 100.279 35.71%
Open Land 2.964 1.06% 2.837 1.01%
Water Body 4.032 1.44% 3.538 1.26%

Fig9: Land Use and Land Cover Classification of 2018 & 2022

Land use and Land cover map are classified into five categories agriculture, vegetation, built-up area, open land, and water body.
On we can use only open land (1.06%, 2018; 1.01 %, 2022, table 4) as a garbage dumping site based on the site suitability
analysis map (fig.8) and field verification. This LULC map shows that most of the wards of the eastern side of the South-West
district of Delhi have dense construction areas compared to the southwestern side. The Wards such as Milap Nagar, Palam, Sadh
Nagar, Kakrola, Kapashera, Krishangarh, Najafgarh, Enclave,Dabri, Navada, etc. are not suitable for any garbage dumping site.

IV. SUGGESTION

The specific behavior that needs to be triggered

• Rural-Urban migration should be planned so that the situation of overcrowding and congestion can be
controlled. Keeping urban areas clean and maintaining a hygienic environment should be part of public
behavioral norms.
• To promote awareness toward clean cities, a regular campaign is needed with the help of proper advertisement
using social media and holdings.

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• For promoting habits among all people irrespective of age and gender keeping the self and surroundings clean
should be part of education.
• In every city, there should be proper sites that are used as garbage dumping sites.
• In every area of the city, whether it is a commercial or residential area, there should be proper facilities for covered
dustbins at equal distances, where regular garbage can be collected.
Implement of the Idea
• The urban local bodies and officials should keep their attention on the workers, engaged in door-to-door garbage
collection, dumping, and urban sanitation for making them more punctual and honest towards their work.
• There should be a weekly record of workers to measure their working quality and punctuality.
• There should be a proper training program for supervisors and workers engaged in garbage collection and sanitation,
and for this activity, a serious step should be taken by urban local bodies and municipal corporation officers. Tree
plantation and conservation of natural resources should be promoted through proper advertisement and
environmental protection campaigns.
• There should be a regular workshop for waste solid management in every location of the urban areas.
• A covered drainage and sewerage facility should be provided in every residential colony and city area.
• The law should be strict to impose a penalty for, those who do not follow the rules and regulations, related to
garbage dumping and keeping the city clean.
V. CONCLUTION

For the rapidly increasing population and urbanization, investigating suitable waste disposal sites is a vital issue for the
administrator. Delhi is one of the rapidly increasing cities in India and highwaste products have been discharged per day and
causing public health and environmental problems. To properly manage and dampen the wastes, preparing suitable disposal
site maps using overlay-weighted processes is the primary task for the local administrator. So, the dumpingsuitability map of
the South-West district of Delhi is prepared in ArcGIS software 10.4 versions. The findings of this study illustrated that 6.38%,
56.70%, and 36. 90% of the study area is suitable, less suitable, and unsuitable for waste disposal site selection respectively.
However, conducting training programs and awareness activities for municipal workers and students would be increasing the
knowledge related to managing their locality. Land use and Land Cover Classification shows that only we can use open land
for the construction of dumping sites based on field verification and ward boundaries showing that the eastern side of South
West Delhi is not suitable for any dumping location site because of the high population density and construction of buildings.
The pre-identified limitations of this study have indicated that the management of urban dumping garbage location requires
mostly field work for the verification of dumping garbage whether it is properly managed by workers. After the analysis of
the site suitability for the landfill zone, field verification was required, which was conducted using Google Earth Imagery for
this study.

The output of the study is used by local land administrators and planners to extract vital information for the selection of
appropriate waste disposal sites. To keep the environment ecstatic and clean, public awareness for waste disposal, promoting
an appreciation of reuse and recycling technologies, and greenhouse gas emissions for energy sources is important.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Supriya Srivastava, Assistant Professor at Shoolini University, Solan,
Himachal Pradesh, for her supervision and providing me with all the facilities to necessary to successfully complete this
project. My heartfelt thanks goes to Miss. Jyoti Nehra, GIS analyst at Map My India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, for her constant
encouragement and advice throughout this research.

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