Potential sites for landfill development in a developing country: A case study of Ga South Municipality, Ghana

Landfilling, which sits at the bottom of the waste management hierarchy, is the most employed option for managing waste in many emerging economies. In view of the numerous environmental and public health challenges associated with operation of landfills, proper siting would require inputs that overcome the challenges. This study sought to use Geographic Information System application through multi-criteria decision technique to spatially locate suitable sites that fulfill standard landfill guidelines, for waste disposal. Spatial Analyst extension within ArcGIS software was employed for the suitability analysis. Three processes were involved: (1) digitizing to determine boundaries around built up areas, (2) buffering for proximity analysis in order to generate zones around features such as roads, streams, etc. and (3) overlay analysis to determine areas suitable for landfilling. The findings from this study revealed that about 2.62% of the total area was considered as most suitable for landfilling, 2.74% deemed suitable and a large portion (94.64%), considered unsuitable. The study identified 6 most suitable sites that can be used for landfill development in the study area burdened with urbanization. GIS has been used to determine suitable sites for landfill development. Findings from the study serve as guideline for environmentally friendly landfill siting with efficient land-use planning.