An Integrated Approach to Identify the Most Efficient Solutions for the Landfill Leachate Problem

A closed landfill site has still to be managed for several decades in aftercare operation. Current studies predict that for almost all landfill sites the aftercare operation has to be prolonged for several decades in contrast to previously made assumptions. This means higher costs and economic problems for owners as the provision made cannot cope. To minimize aftercare costs, owners require a decision support tool to define optimal solutions and measures. Due to the interconnections between the amount of leachate and its treatment and transportation only an integrated and interdisciplinary approach is able to cope with the different expectations to a solution. Therefore, a group of experts from different disciplines was assembled to enable integrated decision support in order to find an optimal solution for a demonstration case, ranking scenarios using a decision support framework. The robustness of this ranking was also tested with a sensitivity analysis. The result of this decision support process with the involvement of all necessary stakeholders showed that for this case study the solution of vehicle transport of the leachate to a nearby wastewater treatment plant and subsequent treatment there using a side stream deammonification plant is preferable.