Abstract—Rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization are known as the most important factors of environment problems. Elimination and management of solid wastes are also within the most important environment problems. One of the main problems in solid waste management is the selection of the best site for elimination of solid wastes. Lately, Geographical Information System (GIS) has been used for easing selection of landfill area. GIS has the ability of imitating necessary economic, environmental and political limitations. They play an important role for the site selection of landfill area as a decision support tool. In this study; map layers will be studied for minimum effect of environmental, social and cultural factors and maximum effect for engineering/economic factors for site selection of landfill areas and using GIS for a decision support mechanism in solid waste landfill areas site selection will be presented in Aksaray/Turkey city, Güzelyurt district practice. Keywords—GIS, landfill, solid waste, spatial analysis. I. INTRODUCTION OMESTIC or industrial wastes can cause very serious environment problems when they are not eliminated in a sanitary and healthy way. As it is not possible to avoid these wastes which are results of modern life, the best solution is to eliminate them by causing the minimum harm for the nature. Solid waste problems are the most important environmental problem of Turkey of late years. Amount of solid waste per person increases due to rapid population growth, urbanization and industrial operations. The issue of eliminating solid wastes in a healthy and economical way has gained more importance in last year’s because solid wastes increase and irregular solid waste landfill areas are unhealthy [1]. If solid waste landfill areas are not selected carefully and built in proper technique, it can bring along no recoverable problems. One of the methods of eliminating wastes with the minimum harm to environment is to store them regularly. Sanitary elimination of solid wastes, which is applied by most of the European Union countries, is done in a very unhealthy way in Turkey. For example; normally there must be a lot of criteria for site selection of landfill area of solid wastes, but in Turkey, this process is executed by a few people randomly and irregularly. Today, it is possible to see the traces of technology in all areas. Technology, which is used in the base of almost every F. I. is with the Department of Geomatics, Univesity of Selcuk, Konya, Turkey (corresponding author to provide Phone: +903322231912; Fax: +90332410635; e-mail: fiscan@ selcuk.edu.tr). C. Y. is with the Department of Geomatics, Univesity of Selcuk, Konya, Turkey (e-mail: cerenavci@ selcuk.edu.tr). perfect project, can also be used in creating landfill areas and alternative solutions can be presented to users. Developments in computer technologies increased the practicability of data storage, data arrangement, data sharing and reassessment of data and data analysis. As the spatial information system users and dealers increase rapidly, technical staff and scientists, who research and produce with conventional techniques, have started to move towards these techniques. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are the main informatics function of 2000’s. GIS, which saves the data in geographical coordinate connected relational database management system, has marked an era in associating and sharing data on earth. One of the most successful application areas of GIS, which enables analysis and ease making right decisions according to these analyses, is the solution of environmental problems. Using GIS for the solution of solid waste landfill site selection, which is one of the developing environmental problems in parallel with increasing population, will be extremely possible and logical. Solid waste site selection of such “land usage planning” includes a lot of spatial analyses such as distance to different land usage areas (buffer zone), angle of gradient and reclassification for conformity. In this sense, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) which are of the ability of processing and analyzing each kind of data, are of an important role for proper landfill areas; in a word a decision support tool for determining alternative areas. Such as GIS makes it possible to include all kind of spatial technical, economic and social conditions and studying the results developed under different conditions. But another important question in landfill site selection process is to find out the more proper alternatives among the proper landfills. Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) gives the opportunity of determining (ordering) alternative areas for decision factors with scoring system [2]-[6]. A lot of criteria must be considered in a very short time while searching landfill areas. This can be achieved by GIS [7]. Key element of the site selection process and system to be applied are basic criteria. Criteria which are used in site selection studies are two types: 1- Limitations, 2- Decision Factors. Limitations are the restrains which determine if the evaluated areas are (1) proper (2) or not proper [8], [9]. For example these assessments are limitations as it is not possible Selection of Solid Waste Landfill Site Using Geographical Information System (GIS) F. Iscan, C. Yagci D World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Civil and Architectural Engineering Vol:9, No:8, 2015 1021 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 9(8) 2015 ISNI:0000000091950263 Open Science Index, Civil and Architectural Engineering Vol:9, No:8, 2015 publications.waset.org/10002562/pdf