Study of the contamination potential of the Jockey Club Landfill, Distrito Federal, Brazil

ABSTRACT

The Jockey Club Landfill is a solid waste disposal site located at Brazil’s Federal District, which operated inadequately from 1960 until the beginning of 2018. The main objective of this paper was to assess the contamination potential of the Jockey Club Landfill due to leachate and biogas production. Initially, the most susceptible areas to contamination were identified within the two hydrographic sub-basins of Bananal and Riacho Fundo, where the landfill is located, by producing a map of the aquifer’s natural vulnerability to contamination. This map was produced based on the DRASTIC methodology, which consists in a weighted linear combination of seven important hydrogeological parameters, with support of the multicriteria Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and map algebra tools implemented in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. This map evidenced that Jockey Club Landfill is located in areas of moderate to high natural vulnerability to contamination. The water balance throughout the landfill profile was also simulated using the Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance model (HELP), whose results evidenced that the contamination potential is higher in some portions of the landfill due to greater volumes of leachate produced. Lastly, an analysis of ground cover temperature in the landfill region was undertaken, using TM/Landsat seasonal images between the years 1986 to 2016, which indicated a gradual increase in ground temperature, evidencing a possible occurrence of subsurface biogas distribution in the landfill.

Keywords:
contamination; landfill; DRASTIC methodology; Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance model; analytic hierarchy process