Sustainable Waste Management Through Systems Engineering Models and Remote Sensing Approaches

Abstract

The burgeoning population has endangered the sustainability of urban areas where over half of the total global population will live by 2050. The population growth has increased the rate of waste production noticeably during the recent past. And its disposal and management are a serious environmental problem across the world. The problem is severe in developing nations because of the quick populace rise and urbanization, the absence of funding and policies, and poor and irregular waste management services. Besides, most municipal authorities in developing nations mainly focus on waste disposal and not management. Appropriate management of municipal solid waste (MSW) is essential for accomplishing many United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UN' SDGs) such as SDG6 "Clean Water and Sanitation," SDG11 "Sustainable Cities and Communities," and SDG12 "Responsible Consumption and Production." This paper assesses the use of diverse systems engineering models and remote sensing, GIS, and GPS for appropriate disposal and management of MSW issues. All the possible sources of related and up-to-date literature have been accessed and more than 210 publications were collected and thoroughly analyzed for this review. The past literature analysis revealed that the cost-benefit analysis models were used to appraise a waste management system's positive and negative economic effects. In contrast, optimization models were used to reach the best solution among several options, considering a set of objectives. The analysis also revealed that the GPS applications were primarily done for tracking waste bins and collection vehicles for monitoring collection time and location. Moreover, the investigation revealed that the combined applications of GPS and GIS techniques performed better than their specific applications. The analysis of numerous global case studies disclosed that political, socioeconomic, hydrological, geological, and environmental factors should be taken into account for a proper landfill siting.