Abstract
Uncontrolled municipal/urban solid waste (MSW) disposal has been a problem for many decades in the Mediterranean region and has had an environmental/ecological impact. In particular, MSW dumped illegally in forests and woodlands can cause severe forest fires. In the present research, uncontrolled waste disposal areas were recorded. These areas include forest areas which subject to the responsibility of the Forest Service of Megara, Greece. The SW Maps geographic information system (GIS) mapping application was used on sites to collect geographical information data and photographic material. The aim was to minimize the environmental degradation caused by uncontrolled waste disposal and its impact on the regions. 38 uncontrolled waste disposal sites were identified, occupying a total area of 41,313,650 m2. The waste volume amounted to 1421 m3, with the waste mainly being composed of plastics, glass rags, textile, paper, cardboard, garden and agriculture–forestry waste, and construction and demolition waste. The sites were mainly located in mountainous and semi-mountainous areas with road access. A significant percentage (26%) of them were recorded as being near or in streams, so waste could be carried away upon heavy rainfall and contribute to flooding. Moreover, these places are characterized by high slopes that can enable waste to move to a larger area with apparent negative effects. Finally, an environmental remediation study was prepared in accordance with current national regulations and modern scientific and technical concepts. Proposals for a potential solution to this environmental concern and rehabilitation costs are provided to help society and decision makers to integrate relevant activities and strategies towards enhancing sustainable development.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Banar M, Cokaygil Z, Ozkan A (2009) Life cycle assessment of solid waste management options for Eskisehir Turkey. Waste Manage 29:54–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2007.12.006
Bhat RA, Nazir R, Ashraf S et al (2014) Municipal solid waste generation rates and its management at Yusmarg forest ecosystem, a tourist resort in Kashmir. Waste Manage Res 32(2):165–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X13518089
Boateng I, Mitchell S, Couceiro F et al (2020) An investigation into the impacts of climate change on anthropogenic polluted coastal lagoons in Ghana. Coastal Manage 48(6):601–622. https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2020.1803565
De S, Maiti SK, Hazra T et al (2016) Leachate characterization and identification of dominant pollutants using leachate pollution index for an uncontrolled landfill site. Global J Environ Sci Manage 2(2):177–186. https://doi.org/10.7508/gjesm.2016.02.008
Halkos G, Petrou KN (2018) Assessing waste generation efficiency in EU regions towards sustainable environmental policies. Sustain Dev 26:281–301
Hame MK, Laughlin TF (2015) Small-mammal mortality caused by discarded bottles and cans along a US forest service road in the Cherokee national forest. Southeast Nat 14(3):506–516. https://doi.org/10.1656/058.014.0310
Issaoui W, Aydi A, Mahmoudi M et al (2021) GIS-based multi-criteria evaluation for olive mill wastewater disposal site selection. J Mater Cycles Waste Manage 23(4):1490–1502. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-021-01231-6
Issaoui W, Alexakis DD, Nasr IH, Argyriou AV, Alevizos E, Papadopoulos N, Inoubli MH (2022) Monitoring olive oil mill wastewater disposal sites using Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope satellite images: case studies in Tunisia and Greece. Agronomy 2022(12):90. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12010090
Khajuria A, Yamamoto Y, Morioka T (2008) Solid waste management in Asian countries: problems and issues. In: Proc 4th Int Conf on Waste Management and Environment, Granada, Spain, 2–4 June 2008, pp 643–653. doi:https://doi.org/10.2495/WM080661
Lămăşanu A, Mihai FC (2012) The illegal dumping of waste in forest areas—evidence from rural territory. In: Proc Int Conf on Integrated Management of Environmental Resources, Editura Universitatii „Stefan cel Mare,” Suceava, Romania, 4–6 Nov 2011, pp 46–50. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266734041
Lekkas E, Spyrou NI, Filis C, et al (2019) The November 25, 2019 Kineta (Western Attica) flood. Newsl Env Disaster Crises Manag Strategies 14. ISSN 2653–9454
Levis WJ, Weisbrod A, Hoofb GV et al (2017) A review of the airborne and waterborne emissions from uncontrolled solid waste disposal sites. Crit Rev Environ Sci Technol 47(12):1003–1041. https://doi.org/10.1080/10643389.2017.1342513
Mammoliti E, Fronzi D, Cambi C et al (2022) A holistic approach to study groundwater-surface water modifications induced by strong earthquakes: the case of Campiano catchment (Central Italy). Hydrology 9(6):97. https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology9060097
Manfredi S, Christensen HT (2009) Environmental assessment of solid waste landfilling technologies by means of LCA-modeling. Waste Manage 29:32–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2008.02.021
Meddour-Sahar O, Meddour R, Leone V, et al (2013) Analysis of forest fires causes and their motivations in northern Algeria: the Delphi method. iForest 6:247–254
Mishra H, Karmakar S, Kumar R et al (2018) A long-term comparative assessment of human health risk to leachate-contaminated groundwater from heavy metal with different liner systems. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25:2911–2923. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-0717-4
Purwani A, Hisjam M, Sutopo W (2020) Municipal solid waste logistics management: a study on reverse logistics. AIP Conf Proc 2217:030181
Ríos AM, Picazo-Tadeo JA (2021) Measuring environmental performance in the treatment of municipal solid waste: the case of the European Union-28. Ecol Ind 123:107328
Sarchani S, Tsanis I (2019) Analysis of a flash flood in a small basin in crete. Water 11(11):2253. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112253
Sarti M, Ciolfi M, Lauteri M et al (2021) Trees outside forest in Italian agroforestry landscapes: detection and mapping using Sentinel-2 imagery. Eur J Remote Sens 54(1):610–624. https://doi.org/10.1080/22797254.2021.1986678
Seror N, Portnov B (2018) Identifying areas under potential risk of illegal construction and demolition waste dumping using GIS tools. Waste Manage 75:22–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2018.01.027
Singh A, Krishna MR, Sharma R (2008) Impact assessment study of municipal solid waste (MSW) sumping in a rain catchment area. In: 12th Int Conf International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG), Goa, India, 1–6 Oct 2008. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242237307
Sopper W (1971) Disposal of municipal waste water through forest irrigation. Environ Pollut 1:263–328
Spyridonidou S, Vagiona DG (2020) Spatial energy planning of offshore wind farms in Greece using GIS and a hybrid MCDM methodological approach. Euro-Mediterr J Environ Integr 5(2):24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41207-020-00161-3
Tamani F, Hadji R, Hamad A et al (2019) Integrating remotely sensed and GIS data for the detailed geological mapping in semi-arid regions: case of Youks les Bains Area, Tebessa province NE Algeria. Geotech Geol Eng 37(4):2903–2913. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-019-00807-2
Vaverková DM, Maxianová A, Winkler J et al (2019) Environmental consequences and the role of illegal waste dumps and their impact on land degradation. Land Use Policy 89:104234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104234
Zaman AU (2014) Identifcation of key assessment indicators of the zero waste management systems. Ecol Ind 36:682–693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.09.024
Funding
This research received no funding.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Anthony Lehmann.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Georgiou, G., Karayannis, V. GIS-based approach for solid waste disposal site mapping and environmental rehabilitation. Euro-Mediterr J Environ Integr 8, 601–611 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41207-023-00387-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41207-023-00387-x