Route Optimization and Site Selection for Solid Waste Disposal for Coimbatore Corporation Using GIS GPS and Soft Computing Tools

Abstract

The process of organizing the redundant residues is referred to as the Solid Waste Management (SWM). The refuse process includes frequency of collection, transportation, waste segregation, compacting, recycling and landfilling. Among all, the transportation and landfilling is most important. The proper landfill site selection has always been a difficult task for the Municipal Corporation, due to the necessity of open sites away from residential area and considering environmental and political consideration. Conversely, the economic routes for waste transportation need to be considered. The objective of the present research is to solve the above complexity through sophisticated GIS and decision making systems. The following are the significant components: 1. Identifying the practical difficulty in existing solid waste planning particularly, waste transportation and landfilling. 2. Inferring the socio-environmental factors for landfill site selection and route optimization. 3. Employing the GIS based MCDA model for inferring potential landfill sites around the Coimbatore Municipal Corporation 4. Implement GIS based Fuzzy- Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model for route optimization. The major step involved in the landfill site selection process is to define the landfill site selection criteria. In present work, maps like Population, Groundwater table, Landuse/Landcover, Slope, Drainage density, Soil texture, Lineament density, Geomorphology and Geology are considered. A GIS based Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is employed to estimate weight factor for each criterion. The in-depth view of the decision making is done by categorists each criteria (parameter) into sub-criteria and assigning weights. The weight of sub-criteria is helpful for comprehensively