Leachate Production at Sanitary Landfill Sites

It is becoming increasingly important to minimize the quantity of leachate produced at a sanitary landfill site to reduce contamination of ground water and surface water. The water balance approach is used here to estimate the amount of leachate produced at a sanitary landfill site. The method is applied to predict leachate at an actual landfill site. Runoff coefficients used to calculate monthly runoff from the monthly precipitation in the water balance method are evaluated based upon past precipitation data. The runoff coefficients customarily used in the design of storm sewers are for 5 yr to 10 yr frequency storms. Use of such runoff coefficients in the water balance method presented here would produce much higher values for runoff and thereby would underestimate the quantity of leachate.