Application of GIS/AHP in siting sanitary landfill: a case study in Northern Cyprus.

The present study utilized a multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) method in a geographical information systems (GIS) environment to evaluate the suitability of potential landfill sites in Northern Cyprus. To determine the most suitable landfill site, one of the MCE techniques, called analytical hierarchy process (AHP), was combined with a GIS to examine 12 criteria: distance from waste generation centres; distance from roads; slope; distance from surface waters; distance from groundwater areas; distance from environmentally sensitive areas; vegetation types; soil productivity; soil permeability; distance from settlements; distance from cultural sites; distance from stone quarries. The relative importance weights of these criteria were estimated using AHP and criteria maps were developed by using GIS spatial analysis.