Monitoring of leachate quality stored in gas ventilation pipes for evaluating the degree of landfill stabilization

Abstract

Monitoring of leachate quality is the essential measure in aftercare for evaluating landfill stabilization. Generally, the most common way of leachate monitoring is executed at the inlet of the leachate treatment facility. However, it does not necessarily reflect the actual state of the site. Thus, methodologies which focus on both the discharge, in order to determine when the post-closure care of the facility should terminate, and on the degree of waste stabilization in the landfill are required. In the present study, monitoring of leachate quality stored in 68 gas ventilation pipes was conducted and the degree of waste stabilization at each location in the landfill was estimated by a statistical approach using the results obtained by monitoring. Leachate characteristics varied significantly for each pipe but seemed to reflect the waste condition of the nearby location. Correlation among the analysed items was quite high. Namely, the difference of leachate quality seemed to be categorized only by the level of concentration but not by the specific characteristics. To confirm this, Euclidean distances of dissimilarity were calculated by multidimensional scaling using six items of leachate quality and temperature. Two factors (thickness of leachate and concentration of total organic carbon (TOC) and electric conductivity (EC)) that distinguish leachate characteristics appeared. To indicate the degree of stabilization by location, the spatial distribution of TOC, total nitrogen (TN), inorganic carbon (IC), and chloride ion were estimated by using the ordinary Kriging methodology. As the result, it was estimated that the concentration of leachate existing within the landfill, especially TN, was higher than the completion criteria for leachate in most parts of the investigated area.