Environ Earth Sci (2017)76:413

DOI 10.1007/s12665-017-6757-8

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Landfill site selection with GIS-based multi-criteria evaluation

technique. A case study in Béni Mellal-Khouribga Region,
Morocco
Ahmed Barakat1 • Abdessamad Hilali1 • Mohamed El Baghdadi1 • Fatima Touhami2

Received: 22 September 2016 / Accepted: 5 June 2017

Ó Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017

Abstract Given the potential negative environmental Keywords Landfill site selection  GIS  MCE  Boolean
impacts linked with wild landfills in Béni Mellal-Khouribga and AHP models  Suitability map
Region, there is a significant need to accelerate the develop-
ment of controlled intermunicipal landfills. Any landfill pro-
ject requires identification of the most suitable sites to prevent Introduction
environmental adversity. So, this study was conducted to
identify candidate landfill sites using geographic information The concept of sustainable development and environment
system (GIS) and multi-criteria evaluation techniques. Ten can become a source of danger through natural processes,
suitability criteria including distance to residential areas, economic activities (energy, industry, etc.), and human
aspect (wind), geology (lithology), distance to faults, distance activities. This is the case of poor waste management,
to surface water, groundwater table, land use, distance to primarily the landfills which are a source of air pollution by
roads, elevation, and slope are considered in the siting release of noxious odors and gases, chemical and biological
assessment. The thematic maps of all criteria were prepared in water pollution, degradation of life quality in urban areas,
GIS environment using Boolean and analytic hierarchy pro- soil contamination by dangerous products (pesticides,
cess (AHP) standardization. After hiding unsuitable areas of heavy metals), pollution of coastal and marine environment
landfill sites identified by the Boolean method, each criterion (Abu-Qdais and Abu-Qudais 2000; Kontos et al. 2003), etc.
was evaluated with the aid of AHP and the final landfill site Environmental management is improved, after collection
suitability map was generated using the overlay analysis in and storage, through the treatment and recycling.
GIS. The results showed that 54% of the study area is not The socioeconomic development and urban dynamic
suitable, 12% is lowly suitable, 24% is moderately suitable, that Morocco has experienced have forced the country to
and indeed 10% is highly suitable for landfilling. The identi- confront the waste management while initiating a series of
fied suitable areas will require careful field studies before the strategic actions to reform the waste management sector
final decision for landfill site selection. Nonetheless, this study (PNDM 2008; SWEEP-Net 2014). The problem of solid
can help planners and local and regional authorities to better waste (about 6 million tons per year in Morocco) does not
manage the solid waste in the region. arise from their collection, but especially for the selection
and management of landfill sites. Recognizing environ-
mental risks related to poor waste management, several
& Ahmed Barakat Moroccan administrative regions envisaged the realization
[email protected] of intermunicipal landfills. This work forms part of this
1
prospect and tries to suggest favorable sites for installing
Georessources and Environment Laboratory, Faculty of
the controlled landfill in Béni Mellal-Khouribga Region.
Sciences and Techniques, University of Sultan My Slimane,
Béni Mellal, Morocco Site selection for landfills is a critical and complex
2 phase because it depends on different factors and regula-
Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Research in Sciences and
Technologies, Polydisciplinary Faculty, University of Sultan tions. It requires further study taking into account various
My Slimane, Béni Mellal, Morocco economic and environmental factors (Yesilnacar and Cetin

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2008), in order to offer the best site with low socioeco- uncontrolled landfills, which could cause various environ-
nomic and environmental costs (Lober 1995; Siddiqui et al. mental problems. However, with the Morocco Municipal
1996). Many assessments of urban landfill sites have been Solid Waste (MSW) Management Program—2008–2022,
done in the main parts of the world, and they have used launched by the Moroccan government, all municipalities
various criteria, such as economic, social, and environ- must have access to controlled landfills by 2022. With this
mental, for site selection. Environmental factors are very purpose, the present work was done in order to define
important, knowing that the landfill can affect the bio- suitable locations of landfill sites for Béni Mellal-Khour-
physical environment and the ecological system of sur- ibga Region. Spatial analysis was made with quantifiable
rounding areas (Alanbari et al. 2014). These various and data on a number of criteria, using Boolean and AHP
multiple (economic, social, and environmental) criteria methods in a GIS environment.
make landfill sitting suitability assessment complicated
because it is difficult to combine criteria and to assign them
the weights of influence. Therefore, GIS-based multi-cri- Materials and methods
teria evaluation (MCE) technique is the ideal tool for such
analysis due to its ability to manage large volumes of Study zone
spatial data from various sources (Kontos et al. 2003;
Malczewski 2004). This technique has become a preferred The study zone is part of the administrative region of Béni
method to find solutions to different problems related to Mellal-Khénifra which extends from 32°100 3400 to
land with multiple alternatives (Jankowski 1995). Owing to 33°240 36.4100 N and from 5°150 5000 to 7°060 5000 W. This
their ability to manage a large volume of spatial data from administrative region contains five provinces which are
a variety of sources (Kontos et al. 2003), GIS-based multi- Béni Mellal, Azilal, Fkih Ben Salah, Khénifra, and
criteria suitability evaluation represents one of the effective Khouribga (Fig. 1), in which Béni Mellal town is the chief
evaluation techniques that allow developing models for center. It covers an area of 33208 km2 and recorded a
predicting the site suitability for waste landfills. It has been population of 2,520,776, representing 7.4% of Moroccan’s
increasingly used for this purpose in the last decade (e.g., total population. Major sources of income to the population
Delgado et al. 2008; Sumathi et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2009; are agriculture, livestock, and minor forest activities. The
Geneletti 2010; Nas et al. 2010; Moeinaddini et al. 2010; climate of the region is semiarid to arid with a dry season
Şener et al. 2010; Donevska et al. 2012a, b; Gorsevski et al. from April to October and a rainy season from November
2012; Eskandari et al. 2012, 2016; Beskese et al. 2015; to March. The average annual rainfall is 350 mm, with an
Bahrani et al. 2016; Rahmat et al. 2017; Torabi-Kaveh
et al. 2016).
In this process of MCA, one of the challenges is to
identify the relative score or weight of selected criteria that
influence land suitability unequally. While several methods
could be used in determining weights of these criteria, it
has usually been approached using Boolean logic and
analytical hierarchy process (AHP) based on evaluation
criteria. A Boolean logic is taken to assign to the selection
criteria, the scores of either ‘1’ or ‘0’ (binary digit values)
that represent either ‘suitable’ or ‘no suitable’ to the
selection criteria and that in order to identify the con-
strained areas for landfill site selection. AHP, the most
popular method used in the literature, is widely used to
determine the weight of criteria based on pairwise com-
parisons of parameters according to their relative impor-
tance (Şener et al. 2011; Aydi et al. 2013; Kumar and
Hassan 2013; Beskese et al. 2015; Bahrani et al. 2016;
Eskandari et al. 2016; Rahmat et al. 2017; Torabi-Kaveh
et al. 2016). The combination of AHP and GIS techniques
helps in decision support systems by the creation of final
suitability map.
Municipal solid wastes from different municipalities of
Béni Mellal-Khouribga Region are disposed in wild and Fig. 1 Local map of the study area

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annual evaporation of about 1800 mm. The annual tem-

perature ranges from 3.5 °C in winter to 38 °C in summer,
with a mean of 17 °C. From a water resources point of
view, the region is one of the major water reservoirs in the
kingdom, including huge reserves of groundwater and
surface water.
The region is experiencing a fast increase in the quantity
of MSW generation as a result of rapid growth and
urbanization and of change in consumption pattern. In
addition, in all municipalities, especially rural, there is no
suitable method for the waste storage. Solid waste is often
accumulated in wild dumps located on the banks of peri-
odic rivers and thalweg or even close to agglomerations.
These places are generally considered as temporary landfill
areas. For this, the conception of a controlled landfill,
provincial or interprovincial in the region is necessary to
protect fertile soils, water resources, and human health and
to reduce the negative environmental impacts of waste
disposal.

Materials and methods

The studied zone covers three provinces which are Béni

Mellal, Fkih Ben Salah, and Khouribga (Fig. 1). The waste
in the study zone is dumped often without applying any
environmental standards, which increase the environmental
problem. Whence, the objective of our study is to con-
tribute to solving part of the problem by the proposal of
sites capable of harboring solid waste landfills while
respecting environmental standards and minimizing the
economic cost. The landfill site selection process followed
in this study is illustrated by the flowchart in Fig. 2. It is
done in two stages after the selection phase of criteria. The
first stage of analysis, using Boolean approach, allowed for
the identification of unfavorable areas for landfilling prior
to undertaking further investigations of the favorable areas.
Constraint criteria used to designate the unfavorable areas
have been expressed as a Boolean map in which a scale
value of 0 was assigned to the excluded areas and a scale
value of 1 was assigned to those potentially suitable for
landfilling (Eastman et al. 1993). The second stage Fig. 2 Flowchart of the methodology used in the study
involved the application of the AHP-based pairwise com-
parisons to result from the first stage, in order to calculate
the weight for each factor and sub-factor. Following this, criteria to assess the ability of a site to satisfy our objec-
the landfill suitability map was generated by overlaying tives. Particularly, there are no predefined and systematic
raster maps of all elements, using the weighted overlay construction methods of specific criteria, and also the
raster analysis. Moroccan law on waste management and their disposal
presents no requirement for the optimal choice of the
Criteria selection and data processing potential landfill site. The criteria used in this study were
selected under consideration of the literature (e.g., Chen
MCE process was employed to select suitable sites to et al. 2010; Şener et al. 2010, 2011, Aydi et al. 2013,
install the controlled landfills. The first fundamental step of Beskese et al. 2015, Shahabi et al. 2014; Yazdani et al.
this multi-criteria analysis is the creation of the list of 2013; Bahrani et al. 2016; Torabi-Kaveh et al. 2016) with

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some adjustments to the Moroccan context. They were The thematic maps of all criteria were realized using
classified into two main groups: (1) economic group ArcGIS 10.22 software and then converted into raster
included distance from roads, slope, and elevation criteria, format using weight values obtained from Boolean and
and (2) geo-environmental group included land use, dis- AHP methods. The final suitability map was derived using
tance to residential areas, geology, water resources, and raster calculator and overlay analysis tools in ArcGIS 10.22
aspect (wind) criteria (Table 1). Each criterion is decom- software for the spatial analyst.
posed into sub-criteria (Table 1).
Chosen in order to reduce negative social and environ- Boolean and AHP methods
mental impacts, these considered criteria were classified as
constraint and factor. Geologic (distance to fault), water Boolean logic In this study, the Boolean logic was used
resource, slope, land use (forest and agriculture), distance in the early stage of the analysis to delineate the areas
to residential areas, and roads criteria were used as con- considered suitable for waste disposal for each of the
straints (exclusion criteria) to exclude the areas where constraints maps. This method is mostly used in the early
landfills cannot be installed due to the potential risk on screening stages (Kamran 2008) or when parameter maps
environment and human health or due to the excessive cost. are divided into suitable (yes) and unsuitable (no) areas
The safety buffers tested at three provinces (Guelmime, (Malczewski 1999). It transforms related information from
Larache, and Chefchaouen) in Morocco (Ezzouaq and each input raster map into binary form true or false or 0 and
Chouaouta 2002) (Table 2) were applied in the present 1. These classes 0 and 1 were assigned to areas excluded
investigation. This analysis provides us a map with from consideration (restricted areas) and others (desired)
excluded and acceptable areas. The acceptable areas were areas, respectively (Malczewski 1999). The output map is a
subjected to a classification by the MCE and AHP methods binary map because it had two polygons. At the end, in
at the second stage of the analysis which is based on all order to prepare final suitability map for landfilling, all
selected criteria. created binary maps for the constraints have been com-
The data used in this study to prepare the selected cri- bined using the Boolean logic model. In this model, all
teria were collected from various sources. Administrative binary maps were considered of equal importance of
boundary map with province limits of the study area was delineating areas suitable for waste disposal, and conse-
downloaded from the High Commission for Planning, quently, an equal weighting was assigned to all binary
Morocco (2016). The geologic map was digitized from thematic maps.
geological paper maps edited by the Division of Geology
of Moroccan Ministry of Energy and Mining and covering AHP method: calculating criterion weights
the study area, such are the 1:200,000 scale geological
maps of Afourer, Béni Mellal, Imilchil, Kasba Tadla, and In the second stage, after extraction of the constrained
Oued Zem, the 1:200,000 scale geological map of Plateau areas obtained from the early screening stage, the land
des Phosphates, and the 1:500,000 scale geological map of suitability was done on the identified potential landfill areas
Rabat. The road map was created from 1:250,000 scale (alternatives) in the study region. Landfill susceptibility
road network maps (Ministry of Equipment and Transport mapping requires the application of multi-criteria approach
2016). The geo-referencing followed by the digitization of and spatial analysis method for the decision-making pro-
all previous base maps has been used to prepare their cess. MCE in GIS environment is one of the modeling
corresponding vector data layers. The digital elevation approaches that are widely used to convert spatial and non-
model (DEM) with a 30–30 m resolution of the study area, spatial data into information used to assist in making crit-
downloaded from ASTER GDEM, was used to obtain ical decisions (e.g., Chen et al. 2010; Nas et al. 2010;
elevation and slope information. The land use map was Gorsevski et al. 2012; Donevska et al. 2012a, b; Motlagh
determined using the moderate-resolution satellite images, and Sayadi 2015; Khan and Samadder 2015). GIS-based
namely Landsat-8 ETM ? (15–30 m) of May 2016 MCE evaluation involves a set of quantifiable spatial fac-
downloaded the USGS Global Visualization server (Glo- tors influencing the landfill suitability and the techniques
Vis). The processing and analysis of satellite images were for expressing preferences regarding the relative impor-
made using ENVI 5.1 software. It was classified using tance of each factor. To determine the weights of the fac-
supervised classification technique and field information tors which have unequal levels of importance, the AHP
and Google Earth image. Groundwater level data were method, one of the most widely known and used approa-
collected from 109 wells over the study area. Groundwater ches to handling multiple and heterogeneous factors, has
level map was prepared using inverse distance weighting been applied. The weight of each criterion was calculated
(IDW) interpolation technique in ArcGIS. by ranking its importance and suitability.

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Table 1 Main criteria, criteria, sub-criteria, and their relative weights calculated with AHP method
Main criteria Weight CR Criteria Weight CR Sub-criteria Weight CR R Weight

Economic 0.25 0 Distance to roads (m) 0.633 0.033 \250 0.503 0.054 0.080
250–500 0.26 0.041
500–750 0.134 0.021
750–1000 0.068 0.011
[1000 0.035 0.006
Elevation (m) 0.26 \500 0.503 0.054 0.080
500–1000 0.26 0.041
1000–1500 0.134 0.021
1500–2000 0.068 0.011
[2000 0.035 0.006
Slope (°) 0.106 \5 0.503 0.054 0.080
05–10 0.26 0.041
10–15 0.134 0.021
15–20 0.068 0.011
[20 0.035 0.006
Environmental 0.75 Aspect 0.021 0.006 SW 0.047 0.0422 0.001
NE 0.047 0.001
NW 0.07 0.001
SE 0.091 0.001
N 0.108 0.002
W 0.141 0.002
E 0.195 0.003
S 0.298 0.005
Distance to residential areas (m) 0.221 \1000 0.035 0.054 0.006
1000–2000 0.068 0.011
2000–3000 0.134 0.022
3000–4000 0.26 0.043
[4000 0.503 0.083
Geology (lithology) 0.04 Highly impermeable 0.557 0.043 0.017
Impermeable 0.29 0.009
Semipermeable 0.11 0.003
Permeable 0.043 0.001
Distance to faults (m) 0.061 \250 0.035 0.054 0.002
250–500 0.068 0.003
500–750 0.134 0.006
750–1000 0.26 0.012
[1000 0.503 0.023
Distance to surface water (m) 0.207 \500 0.035 0.054 0.005
500–1000 0.068 0.011
1000–1500 0.134 0.021
1500–2000 0.26 0.040
[2000 0.503 0.078
Groundwater table (m) 0.194 \10 0.035 0.054 0.005
10–20 0.068 0.010
20–30 0.134 0.019
30–40 0.26 0.038
[40 0.503 0.073
Land use 0.255 Bare soil 1 0.002 0.191

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Table 2 Safety buffer of

Criteria Security buffer
Boolean constraints
Distance to residential areas (isolated dwellings and agglomerations) 500 m
Distance to residential areas (towns and urban centers) 2 km
Distance to roads 300 m
Slope 5°
Geology (distance to fault) 500 m
Distance to surface water (river/streams/lakes/wells) 500 m
Land use (distance to agricultural and forest lands) 300 m

As described by Saaty (1977, 1994), the AHP process each row of the normalized matrix. The calculated weights
derives the weights of the parameters, by following three are within the range of 0–1, and their sum is equal to 1
different steps (Elaalem et al. 2011). The first step was to (Malczewski 1999; Ozturk and Batuk 2011). In this study,
construct the decision-making problem into a hierarchical an AHP Excel template was used to compute the weight of
structure including objectives, criteria, sub-criteria, and all factors relatively to their suitability, and the results are
alternatives. The hierarchical model used in this study is listed in Table 1. In order to check that these weights are
listed in Fig. 2. The objective was the landfill suitability suitable, consistency index (CI) is calculated as:
map, and the factors consisted of distance to residential kmax  1
areas, aspect (wind), geology (lithology), distance to faults, CI ¼
n1
distance to surface water, groundwater table, land use,
distance to roads, elevation, and slope; each of which had where CI is the consistency index (1), kmax is the maximum
some sub-factors, and some of the sub-factors were divided eigenvalue of the matrix, and n is the order of the matrix.
into several alternatives. The ratio, CI/RI, derived from CI compared to the random
The second step was to assign the relative importance of matrix (RI), is termed the consistency ratio, CR. Saaty
criteria at each level of the hierarchical structure, based on (1991) suggests the value of CR should be equal to or less
Saaty and Vargas’ preference scale (2001), and to derive than 0.1 for the matrix to be consistent. For this study, the
the pairwise comparison matrix. The pairwise comparison results of this stage are shown in Table 1. The CR com-
matrix of various criteria included in the same level is puted at each level of hierarchy is less than 0.750, indi-
constructed based on experts’ views, by assigning nine cating thereby that the matrix was proper to use (Table 1).
points scoring from 1 to 9, in which 1 represents equal The third step consisted of producing the final landfill
preference and 9 represents extreme preference (Table 3). susceptibility map using the results from the two stages
The pairwise comparison matrix created consists of described above. The final map was determined by com-
n (n - 1)/2 comparisons for n number of elements on the puting the landfill suitability index (LSI), in the following
level (Malczewski 1999; Ozturk and Batuk 2011). Once the manner:
pairwise matrix is made, the weights are determined by Xn

normalizing the pairwise comparison matrix. The normal- LSI ¼ wi  xi ðafter Cengiz and Akbulak 2009Þ
i¼1
ized pairwise comparison matrix is taken by dividing each
matrix element by the total of its column. Then, the where n is the total number of LS criteria, wi is the weight
weights are obtained by measuring the mean of elements in index of factor, and xi is the weight index of sub-criteria.
Higher LSI values indicate areas more suitable for
landfills. The final landfill suitability map was generated
Table 3 Saaty and Vargas preference scales using ArcGIS 10.2.2 by combining ten criteria maps and
Intensity of importance Description overlaying weighs of individual criteria.
1 Equal importance
2 Equal to average importance
Results and discussion
3 Average importance
4 Average to strong importance
Description of criteria
5 Strong importance
6 Strong to very strong importance The identification of suitable sites for solid waste disposal
7 Very strong importance should be based on a number of criteria distributed between
8 Very strong or super strong importance an economic, social–cultural, environmental group. The
9 Super strong importance criteria used to evaluate the areas suitable for landfilling in

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Fig. 3 a Map of distance to roads; b elevation map; c slope map; d map of distance to residential areas; e aspect map; f permeability map

the study region are in number of ten and were the distance buffer distance far away from roads. The buffer map was
to residential areas, aspect (wind), geology (lithology), converted to raster map with a 30 9 30 m resolution, and
distance to faults, distance to surface water, groundwater each buffer zone was weighted by AHP (Table 1).
table, land use, distance to roads, elevation, and slope. The
main reason for using these criteria is their frequent and Elevation
adequate utilization for assessment of areas suitability for
landfilling. The influence of these criteria varied according Areas with high altitude or high slope are not suitable landfill
to the studied zone specificities. The criteria used are sites. The elevation is an important factor that has an effect
explained in detail in the following sections. The buffers on other selection factor, namely slope and aspect. Also,
for each criterion were developed according to the classi- higher elevation makes access difficult and leads to higher
fication reported in Ezzouaq and Chouaouta (2002). transportation costs. In study region, the difference between
the highest elevation point (Atlas Mountain of Béni Mellal,
Distance to roads 2260 m) and the lowest elevation point (Tadla basin, 320 m
AMSL) is about 1940 m. This elevation difference was
A solid waste discharge must be placed either in the divided into five classes that are \500, 500–1000,
immediate vicinity of the traffic roads to minimize negative 1000–1500, 1500–2000, and [2000 m, knowing that the
environmental effects (odor and visual pollution) or not too class with low elevation is considered the most suitable and
far from existing roads to avoid the high cost of con- the [2000 m class is the least suitable. The elevation map
struction of road servicing the landfill and to further reduce was prepared from the digital elevation model (DEM) of the
the cost of transportation. Therefore, in this study, the road study area (Fig. 3b). Much of the region is characterized by
network map including highway, main roads, and sec- an altitude between 320 and 1000 m. The southeastern part
ondary roads, was generated and buffered, after extracting of the region is characterized by high altitudes ranging from
the constraint areas of 300 m, into five zones of 250 m 1000 to 2260 m. Weight for the each elevation class was
(Fig. 3a). The lowest suitability score has been given to the calculated using AHP (Table 1).

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Slope frequent wind. And all other directions were weighted by

AHP, depending on their wind frequency (Table 1).
The selection of landfill sites is closely related to the
topography (slope) of the area which affected many land- Lithology (permeability)
scape processes such as soil water content, erosion poten-
tial, runoff, and surface and subsurface flow velocity. The The landfill is to be constructed over an impermeable
areas with slopes less than 6° are considered as the most substrate, thick enough, and having no crack to prevent
appropriate, but those with slopes higher than 17° are not groundwater pollution (Ezzouaq and Chouaouta 2002). The
appropriate (Donevska et al. 2012a, b). Digital elevation study area is characterized by the presence of several
map was used to create the spatial slope map of the study lithological formations that have been grouped into four
area (Fig. 3c). The slope was evaluated as five classes: \5, lithological units based on their permeability, including
5–10, 10–15, 15–20, and [20°. The areas having lower highly impermeable rocks (clays, quartz, basalts, granite),
slope were taken as the high suitable and have been given impermeable (schist, quartzite), semipermeable rocks
the highest score. The thematic map showed that most of (sandstone bedrock), and permeable rocks (calcareous,
the study zone was mostly flat in terrain and was mostly sands, silt, etc.), with the dominance of permeable and
suitable for landfill sites. semipermeable classes (Fig. 3f). The lands having low
All buffer areas were weighted by AHP (Table 1). permeability represent the more appropriate location for
landfill sites, and it gave them a high rating compared with
Distance to residential areas those having high permeability, and subsequently, each
permeability class was weighted by AHP (Table 1).
The landfill areas should be situated at a significant dis-
tance away from urban and rural settlement areas, in order Distance to faults
to avoid public concerns because of problems such as
water, air and visual pollution, insects and vermin, fire, and The substratum without fault is one of the best criteria for
noise. For this purpose, a safety buffer zone of 2000 m landfill selection. The faults can promote infiltration of
around these residential areas was applied in this study leachates from the landfill, which could be a potential
(Table 2), and then the thematic layer was prepared with source of surface water and groundwater contaminations.
five buffers, \1000, 1000–2000, 2000–3000, 3000–4000, For this, the landfills should be implanted placed as far
and [4000 m, according to distance from residential areas away as possible from fractured areas. In this study, the
(Fig. 3d). The most suitable areas are buffer very far from minimal distance from the fault line is 500 m (restricted
residential areas, while the closer buffer was assigned with area). The fault layer was generated from geology maps,
the lowest suitability. The buffer zones were rasterized into and the buffer zones at intervals of 250 m were drawn
a map with a 30 9 30 m resolution, and each buffer zone around the restricted areas (Fig. 4a). The closer buffer to
was weighted by AHP (Table 1). the fault has been taken as inappropriate areas for landfill
placement. All buffers were weighted by AHP (Table 1).
Aspect (wind)
Distance to surface water
Landfills are usually responsible for emissions of
unpleasant odors and dust carried by the wind, especially The proximity of a landfill project to a surface water source is
when the prevailing wind direction blows toward residen- considered as a disadvantage because the landfill activities
tial areas. Therefore, the predominant wind direction was have the potential to alter the quantity of surface water in the
taking into consideration because it should be considered to near localities (Gorsevski et al. 2012), through movement of
hinder residential areas from dust and odor. It is also an leachate and erosion of waste. Therefore, the landfill sites
established fact that the direction and velocity of winds should not be constructed near any surface water (Şener et al.
vary with altitude, slope, aspect, and terrain roughness 2010). Hence, in this study area, a 500-m buffer zone was
(Kontos et al. 2005). To evaluate the wind direction of the drawn around the surface water systems. The thematic layer
study area, an aspect map was prepared using a digital prepared from the DEM was buffered into five buffers (\500,
elevation model with a 30 9 30 m resolution (Fig. 3e). 500–1000, 1000–1500, 1500–2000, [2000 m) around all
The predominant wind direction in the study area is excluded areas (safety buffer) (Fig. 4b). Buffer lying close to
northeast (NE) and southwest and was therefore assigned the surface water systems is considered inappropriate for
the lowest value of suitability, while the higher value of landfill siting. The relative weights of all buffers are achieved
suitability was assigned to the direction with the least by AHP pairwise.

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Fig. 4 a Map of distance to faults; b map of distance to surface water; c map of groundwater table; d land use map

Groundwater table Land use

The depth of groundwater table is a significant parameter in The landfill site must not be located close to or inside the
determining the contamination risk of groundwater in order forest or agricultural areas to avoid degradation and con-
to limit potential contamination. In order to prevent tamination of the soil which is a slowly renewable source.
groundwater contamination through leachate infiltration, In this study, the spatial land use map was prepared after
the selected landfill site must not be implemented on the classification of Landsat-8 optical satellite images by
important aquifers that have high vulnerability such as the supervised classification method and then converted in
shallow aquifers. According to Bolton (1995), aquifer raster map of 30 9 30 m resolution. The highest score was
depths less than 15.24 m should be considered less suit- given to the most appropriate areas for landfills including
able. From the field data on water levels in wells in the bare soils; however, forest and agriculture areas and the
study area, collected in March and April 2016, the piezo- housing have a zero weight and are considered as con-
metric surface layer was developed in ArcGIS from inverse strained (excluded) areas (Fig. 4d).
distance-weighted interpolation. It was buffered into five
depth intervals (\10, 10–20, 20–30, 30–40, and [40) that Suitability map
were scored in such a way that the deepest water table in-
terval is the most suitable and vice versa (Fig. 4c). All In this study, land suitability for installation of the inter-
depth buffers were weighted by AHP method (Table 1). municipal landfill was assessed by using Boolean, AHP,

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and GIS approaches. Ten economic and environmental conducted taking into account a combination of various
criteria were selected and used as constraints and/or fac- factors, sub-factors, and alternatives. The weight of each
tors. Finding suitable landfill sites was performed in two criterion was determined by AHP, and then the land suit-
steps. In the first step, the Boolean analysis was used to ability index (LSI) for landfill location was calculated by
distinct between ‘‘suitable’’ and ‘‘unsuitable’’ areas, based the mathematical formulae described as follows:
on constraint criteria. Through overlapping Boolean maps LSI ¼ ½ð AÞ  ððA1 cwi  A1 scwi Þ þ ðA2 cwi  A2 scwi Þ
of each exclusion criteria, the final constraint map was
þðA3 cwi  A3 scwi ÞÞ þ ðBÞ  ððB1 cwi  B1 scwi Þ
generated with the excluded areas and the most candidate
areas for landfill sites (Fig. 5). From this map, we noticed þðB2 cwi  B2 scwi Þ þ ðB3 cwi  B3 scwi Þ
that 54% (533,200 ha) of the study area is considered þððB4 cwi  B4 scwi Þ þ ðB5 cwi  B5 scwi Þ
unsuitable and 46% (454,200 ha) could be taken into þðB6 cwi  B6 scwi Þ þ ðB7 cwi  B7 scwi ÞÞÞ
consideration. High elevation and steeper slopes of the
mountain areas represented the most important constraints where LSI: Landfill suitability index; A: weight index of
criteria that reduced the suitability of landfill sites. Also, economic main criterion; A1cwi: weight index of distance to
these mountain areas showed a dense forest cover with roads criterion; A1scwi: weight index of distance to roads
high biodiversity. This further restricted the use of these sub-criterion; A2cwi: weight index of elevation criterion;
areas for landfill installation. While 10% of the study area A2scwi: weight index of elevation sub-criterion; A3cwi:
presents small variation in slope and lack of forest cover, weight index of slope criterion; A3scwi: weight index of
40% of it consists of agricultural lands. These lands slope sub-criterion; B: weight index of environmental main
occupying the Tadla basin located between the Béni Mellal criteria; B1cwi: weight index of aspect criterion; B1scwi:
Atlas and the phosphates’ plateau are characterized by high weight index of aspect sub-criterion; B2cwi: weight index of
fertility that allows them to be used largely for intensive distance to residential areas criterion; B2scwi: weight index
farming and consequently limits their use for landfilling. of distance to residential areas sub-criterion; B3cwi: weight
The phosphates’ plateau has land undeveloped and very index of geology (lithology) criterion; B3scwi: weight index
little fertile which restricts, in addition to the lack of water, of geology (lithology) sub-criterion; B4cwi: weight index of
their use in modern farming purposes. Consequently, these distance to faults criterion; B4scwi: weight index of distance
areas which represent 20% of the total surface could be to faults sub-criterion; B5cwi: weight index of distance to
considered as suitable areas for landfills. surface water criterion; B5scwi: weight index of distance to
In the second step, after eliminating sites considered by surface water sub-criterion; B6cwi: weight index of
the Boolean approach to be unsuitable for landfilling, the groundwater table criterion; B6scwi: weight index of
analysis would only concern the remaining suitable zones groundwater table criterion; B7cwi: weight index of land
in order to identify potential landfill sites. It has been use criterion; B7scwi: weight index of land use sub-
criterion.
From the AHP approach applied to comparing the weights
of criteria at each main criterion and the weights of sub-
criteria at each criterion, the weights and CR obtained are
listed in Table 1. The CR values of all comparisons were less
than 0.75, suggesting that the weights obtained are consis-
tent. The results of the pairwise comparison used to obtain
priorities between the economic criteria showed that the
distance to roads is the most important criterion with a rel-
ative weight of 63.3%, followed by the elevation criterion,
and then the slope criterion having the weights of 26 and
10.6%, respectively. For the environmental criteria, the
weights of criteria with highest priority are 25.5% of land
use, 22.1% of distance to residential areas, 20.7% of distance
to surface water, and 19.4% of the groundwater table. The
lowest weights of 2.1, 0.4, and 6.1% were calculated with
regard to environmental concerns, for the aspect (wind),
geology (lithology), and distance to faults criteria, respec-
tively. The same priority whether for environmental or for
economic criteria was highlighted by other studies using
Fig. 5 Final landfill suitability map

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Environ Earth Sci (2017)76:413 Page 11 of 13 413

similar method (AHP) for the landfill site selection (i.e., that the methodology was effective and provided correct
Moeinaddini et al. (2010); Şener et al. (2010). results for the selection of landfill sites that are consistent
A thematic layer of each criterion was generated by using with field observations. Furthermore, it is recommended
the ArcMap application in ArcGIS 10.22 software, and then that these sites be considered for further evaluation based
the final suitability map for landfill sites was produced by on other local criteria and field studies prior to making final
overlapping all thematic layers using the weighted overlay decisions on the best site, because some of these criteria
technique in GIS (Fig. 5). The land suitability for landfill need to be investigated in landfill sites, as reported in the
sites was classified by suitability index calculated using AHP landfill environmental impact assessment regulation. For
weighting. The LSI values ranged between 0 and 0.382, example, the consultation of local residents and the
knowing that the highest values of LSI indicate the most detailed geological, hydrogeological, and geotechnical
suitable areas for landfills. It is categorized using equal investigations will be performed to obtain good precision
interval classification method in ArcMap into three suit- to the landfill site selection.
ability classes, i.e., highly suitable (LSI = 0.304–0.382), Some other studies emphasized that the judgment
moderately suitable (LSI = 0.227–0.304), and lowly suit- (weights) used in the analysis similar to this study was
able (LSI = 0–0.227). Regarding the final suitability map, based on the experts’ opinions and information on MSW
different appropriate areas were distinguished for landfilling management laws (i.e., Qdais and Alshraideh 2016;
(Fig. 3). As a result, about 54% of the study area is not Babalola 2015) would produce different results. Moreover,
suitable, about 12% had a very low suitability, and about methods designed based on MCE are developing to select
24% had a moderate suitability for landfill siting. Indeed landfill sites. Nevertheless, the AHP approach used in
10% whole areas are highly suitable for landfill placement. combination with GIS in this study could be seen inter-
This showed that despite the vast extent of the study area, the esting and can be adapted to a number of variables and
lands suitable for landfill remain sufficiently limited. scenarios. The clearest proof of this is that the obtained
The results of the combination of GIS and MCE meth- results are consistent with the reality on the ground. Our
ods seem very consistent with our knowledge and field results, therefore, support the findings from the previous
observations of the region. More than half of the surface of scientific literature, like those of Chabuk et al. (2017),
the study area, especially the southern part, is not suit- Ghobadi et al. (2017), Rahmat et al. (2017) and Eskandari
able since there are agricultural (irrigated perimeter of et al. (2012). Consequently and obviously, the applied
Tadla plain) and forest lands. In the northern half of the approach in this study can be used as a guiding framework
region, soils are not better for agriculture, but are not well in a decision-making process of choosing the best option
suited to intensive agricultural uses. However, they are for MSW landfill site selection and provides a benchmark
handicapped by the remoteness, extraction of phosphate for future studies in other Moroccan or regional areas.
deposits, and the presence of several urban centers. The
candidate sites are located in the center of the study region,
almost halfway between the cities highly populated in the Conclusion
study area, which could play an important role in landfill
site selection by minimizing the MSW transportation cost. Landfill site selection requires evaluation and combination
With regard to socio-environmental concerns, the suit- of various criteria controlling the land suitability for
able sites are located typified by a small population widely landfill siting. The present study was conducted to identify
dispersed. Also, the selected sites coincided mainly with appropriate landfill sites in Béni Mellal-Khouribga Region
collective land belonging to ethnic communities, facilitat- based on ten environmental and economic criteria, i.e.,
ing their administrative expropriation in the public interest. distance to residential areas, aspect (wind), geology
However, a detailed feasibility study should be carried out (lithology), distance to faults, distance to surface water,
on the most suitable sites before any landfill construction, groundwater table, land use, distance to roads, elevation,
in order to prevent conflicts between land users and to and slope. A comparison of such criteria was possible only
minimize all pollution risks. Other favorable sites located with applying of MCE and GIS methods that are capable of
in the north of Khouribga Town are considered economi- handling different types of data.
cally unsuitable for landfill sites due to their location far The Boolean approach is used to categorize the study
from the other agglomerations of the region and their small zone into suitable or unsuitable areas for landfilling. AHP
spatial extent. method was applied to calculate the weight values of
To sum up, landfill site selection in the study area is a selection criteria based on their relative importance. The
result of a combination of economic and environmental consistency of the AHP results is evaluated by the mea-
criteria by following a step-by-step methodology and while surement of CR that is less than 0.75. From the overall
coupling GIS and MCE methods. It is important to notice weights calculated, the criteria of distance to residential

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413 Page 12 of 13 Environ Earth Sci (2017)76:413

areas, distance to surface water, groundwater table, land Bolton N (1995) The handbook of landfill operations. Blue Ridge
use, and distance to roads are quite important criteria. Services, Atascadero
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