Landfill Site Selection for Municipal Wastes by GIS Software and Fuzzy Model (Case Study: Rafsanjan City)

Development of cities and increase in population growth, have been caused to produce the different municipal wastes.  Base on hazardous environmental effect of landfill, site selection for landfill should be done carefully and in a scientific process. The different parameters are involved in site selection of landfill that whichever have particular importance and case restriction in the selection. The goal of this study is choosing the most suitable site that has the least environmental adverse impacts. This study is done by using GIS software and Fuzzy model .At first, important factors in site selection for landfill were identified. Then , nineteen layers were digitized and weighted , such as: as soil characteristics , geological characteristics , surface water, depth of groundwater ,distance from urban centers , distance from fault, access roads , height floor , slope , vegetation coverage,... layers by using fuzzy model were combined and the best site for Rafsanjan landfill was selected . In this study, the suitable areas are located at the north and Northern-western of the city. The result of this paper indicate that using GIS software and fuzzy model in site selection offer this chance to the decision maker to insert more important subjects which have greater role in site selection . Therefore, using Fuzzy model is suitable for this kind of studies.