Selection of suitable landfills sites for oily drilling wastes of Iranian Offshore Oil Company in Qeshm Island using analytical hierarchy process and geographic information system

Improper landfilling of drilling waste has adverse effects on the environment and human health. This study aims to select suitable landfills for oil and gas drilling waste on Qeshm Island using GIS and AHP.

In this study, a weighted map was prepared based on each criterion affecting the site location. In the next step, each of the prepared layers was ranked. Higher rating indicated the importance of each layer while lower values corresponded to their insignificane.

The reasults of this study showed that the distance from population centers (weight 0.222), communication network (roads) (weight 0.169) and surface waters (weight 0.142) are important parameters for landfill siting. The combination of ranked maps and the weights obtained from AHP, divided the landfill area to “completely suitable”, “suitable”, “relatively suitable”, “relatively unsuitable” and “unsuitable”.

Priorities identified in “completely suitable” areas can be the basis for decision-making, and appropriate locations can be on the agenda as next priorities.