KNOWLEDGE BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR DISPOSAL OF HAZARDOUS MATERIAL

Abstract

Over the years, hazardous waste has become an issue of major global concern. Current waste management systems are collapsing under pressures caused by unmitigated urban growth, a growing consumerist culture as well as traditional approaches of collection and disposal. The traditional solution has been to dump hazardous waste on low-lying areas near the city's outskirts. These areas are often, and mistakenly, called landfills. But are landfills the answer to hazardous waste management problems, keeping in mind the priority area of environmental and health impacts? The answer is clearly NO. Local governments have been trying to turn more vacant places into dump yards instead of looking for sustainable waste management practices. Without proper disposal, hazardous wastes could be a major source of toxic pollution and a threat to our lives and the natural environment. As the problem of identifying best suitable site with considering all prospects, is essentially spatial in nature thus geographical information system (GIS) together with multicriteria decision making (MCDM) techniques is emerging as a preferred tool for identifying best suitable sites. The spatial decision support system is being used successfully in developed countries to ensure least bad impacts. The hazardous waste dumping requires additional factors such as type of waste into consideration. Existing system consider only spatial criteria. Furthermore the knowledge from various experts can not be used simultaneously. To overcome these limitations, it has been decided to design a new tool. Multicriteria decision making (MCDM) and a wide range of related methodologies has been implemented to offer a variety of techniques and practices to uncover and integrate decision makers' preferences in order to solve "real-world" GIS-based planning and management problems. The weights generated for expert knowledge using the developed methodology, has been used to find out suitable sites for the hazardous waste dumping in the Haridwar district of Uttaranchal state of India. Various overlay analysis has been performed by generating weights under different constrains and criteria in consideration.