Water budgets as a tool for landfill owners and decision makers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15626/Eco-Tech.2003.021Abstract
According to the outcome of a United Nations conference in Johannesburg, 2002, many
countries of the world are facing large water management challenges that require
groundwater and surface water resources to be protected. Leachate from landfills and city
dumps is a significant source of groundwater and surface water contamination. Local
Environmental Protection Authorities have, during recent years, increased their
requirements on the municipalities, the waste management companies and the industries
that are running solid waste landfills. These requirements include having a good
knowledge of and control over the water budget and the geohydrological position of the
landfill area and its surroundings. In the case of new landfills, the demands are higher.
According to the Waste Council Directive 1999/31 /EC on landfilling of waste, the
Member States should set up a national strategy for pollution reduction, water control and
leachate management at landfill areas. A meteorological station should be located on site.
In order to ensure a proper and optimized design of the facilities, it is of the highest
importance to know the seasonal and short-time variations of the different terms of the
water balance, from both a quantitative and a qualitative point of view. Water budgets for
an entire area can give a picture of water conservation, water allocation priorities,
groundwater and stream flow, pollution tracking and ecosystem requirements in the
whole region around the landfill. These budgets can easily be made as hand calculations.
In order to ensure adequate designs that are practical and economical, it is essential to
have reliable and accurate design tools and models available to estimate the water
balance components and to predict liquid movement into, through, and out of landfills of
various designs. There are a number of models, such as HELP, PREFLO, MOBYDEC
and FILL, available. However, this paper presents water budget calculations on various
time bases that can easily be carried out by hand and by the landfill owner.
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References
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