Application of Analytical Hierarchy Process and Geospatial Techniques for Identifying Suitable Solid Waste Management Sites in Prayagraj City, India

Abstract

The Identification of suitable sites for solid waste disposal remains a significance challenge in rapidly developing cities due to public health concerns and environmental sustainability. The goal of this study is to identify a suitable area for solid waste disposal of the Prayagraj city using geospatial techniques and analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Seven different criteria such as slope, LULC, lithology, geomorphology, distance from road, distance from railway, distance from river has been obtained and spatial thematic maps were generated in GIS environment. The datasets used for this study were obtained from the ISRO website, OpenStreetMap, and Sentinel-2 imagery. A multi-criteria decision-making approach based on the AHP method was applied to assign weights to all criteria for identifying suitable locations for waste disposal. All the different criteria maps of the study area were generated and overlaid in GIS environment to generate the final suitability map, which was classified into highly suitable, moderate suitable and not suitable area. The result of the study area shows that about 3.87 % of the study area come under most suitable site, 26.45 % come under moderately suitable and 69.68 % come under not suitable area. This study supports the selection of waste disposal sites and provides valuable guidance to municipal authorities and decision makers in addressing environmental issues and improving public health.