title: Estimation of fugitive landfill methane emissions using surface emission monitoring and Genetic Algorithms optimization.
abstract: As municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills can generate significant amounts of methane, there is considerable interest in quantifying fugitive methane emissions at such facilities. A variety of methods exist for the estimation of methane emissions from landfills. These methods are either based on analytical emission models or on measurements. This paper presents a method to estimate methane emissions using ambient air methane measurements obtained on the surface of a landfill. Genetic Algorithms based optimization combined with the standard Gaussian dispersion model is employed to identify locations as well as emission rates of potential emission sources throughout a municipal solid waste landfill. Four case studies are employed in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology. It is shown that the proposed approach enables estimation of landfill methane emissions and localization of major emission hotspots in the studied landfills. The proposed source-locating-scheme could be seen as a cost effective method assisting landfill operators to reasonably estimate and locate major methane emissions.
authors.affiliation: Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Gabès, University of Gabès, Rue Omar Ibn-Elkhattab, 6029 Gabès, Tunisia; LASMAP, Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie, University of Carthage, B.P. 743, La Marsa 2078, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Tarek
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kormi
authors.affiliation: LASMAP, Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie, University of Carthage, B.P. 743, La Marsa 2078, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Safa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mhadhebi
authors.affiliation: Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Gabès, University of Gabès, Rue Omar Ibn-Elkhattab, 6029 Gabès, Tunisia; LASMAP, Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie, University of Carthage, B.P. 743, La Marsa 2078, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Nizar
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bel Hadj Ali
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA. Electronic address: abichou@eng.fsu.edu.
authors.forename: Tarek
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Abichou
authors.affiliation: Waste Management, Inc., 2956 Montana Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45211, USA.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Green
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants; D000465:Algorithms; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D008697:Methane / Q000032:analysis*; D012037:Refuse Disposal; D062611:Solid Waste; D064091:Waste Disposal Facilities
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D062611:Solid Waste; D008697:Methane
keywords: Genetic Algorithms; Methane emission; Methane measurements; Solid waste landfill