Selection of the final solid waste disposal site in the Bolgatanga municipality of Ghana using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE)

The various components of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) such as collection, sorting, transportation, and disposal have their peculiarities and challenges. However, final disposal sites, generally referred to as landfill sites, present a complex difficulty. The aggregation of the problems of other components has consequences on the microenvironment, public health, and groundwater. Final disposal of MSW, site selection, and management presents an enormous burden for most Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assembly (s) in Ghana. The case of Bolgatanga Municipality is similar to many others in the Upper East region in particular and Ghana as a whole. The existing landfill site is improperly sited and poses a great danger to adjoining communities. In this work, we used the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in a G.I.S. suite and Multi-Criteria Evaluation to assess the current location and select a possible new site within the municipality. The criteria used are generally environmental and socio-economic parameters, including; distance from major roads, rivers, settlements, and the selection of an appropriate slope and soil type that suits the guidelines for the siting of a landfill. The outcome of this multi-criteria assessment is the selection of a new site far from the current disposal site indicating the inappropriate location of the current site. A combination of all weighted criteria through a model builder process produced a suitability index map for candidate landfill sites. The selected site at Sherigu is about 16 km by road from the proposed site, which is much bigger than the threshold of 500 sq. meters. The separation distance and size between the current and the proposed site are indications of how economically and environmentally inappropriate the Sherigu site is and the need for a better site that is better situated for socio-economic and environmental considerations.

Gridded daily rainfall data for Ghana for the period 1960 - 2015: Approach and validation process

Rainfall data is necessary at resolutions that allow modelling of environmental change and its impact on socio-economic well-being. This is particularly so with agricultural output determination in much of Africa with Ghana not exemption, where data is required for intra and inter-seasonal assessment of the impact of rainfall on yield. However, the sparse and limited distribution data from gauge measurements, coupled with periods of no record of daily rainfall data, limit their application for any meaningful endeavour. This data cures such deficiency by generating a high resolution (0.25° × 0.25°) gridded daily rainfall using the Minimum Surface Curvature (MSC) interpolation for 190 stations distributed across all agro-climatic zones of Ghana. Validation is done using 19 Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) gauge stations (10%) by comparing the; ratios, correlations and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of the observed to the gridded for the seasons.