Landfills – territorial issues of cities from North-East Region, Romania Florin Mihai, Pavel Ichim To cite this version: Florin Mihai, Pavel Ichim. Landfills – territorial issues of cities from North-East Region, Romania. Forum Geografic. Geographical studies and environment protection research, Universitatea Craiova, 2013, 12 (2), pp.201-210. 10.5775/fg.2067-4635.2013.244d. hal-01151113 HAL Id: hal-01151113 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01151113 Submitted on 22 Jun 2015 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Forum geografic. Studii și cercetări de geografie și protecția mediului Volume XII, Issue 2 (December 2013), pp. 201-210 (10) http://dx.doi.org/10.5775/fg.2067-4635.2013.244d Landfills – territorial issues of cities from North-East Region, Romania Florin – Constantin MIHAI1,*, Pavel ICHIM1 1 Faculty of Geography and Geology, Department of Geography, University of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, B-dul Carol I, Nr. 20 A, RO-700505, Iasi, Romania * Corresponding author, [email protected] Received on <07-05-2013>, reviewed on <21-09-2013>, accepted on <26-10-2013> Abstract Rezumat. Depozite de deșeuri – probleme Landfilling prevails in waste management options in Romania like teritoriale ale orașelor din Regiunea Nord-Est, others new EU members, being contrary to the concept of waste Romania hierarchy promoted in recent years by EC. Waste disposal is done Depozitarea predomină în opțiunile de management al deșeurilor usually in non-compliant landfills and Government established a în România asemeni altor state noi membre, fiind contrar program to close these sites. This paper aims to analyse the conceptului de ierarhie a deșeurilor promovat în ultimi anii de CE. transition from traditional waste management systems to an Eliminarea deșeurilor se realizează de obicei în depozite integrated system at national, regional and local scale. neconforme, iar Guvernul a stabilit un calendar de închidere a Assessment of landfills location based on buffer analysis (using acestor amplasamente. Această lucrare iși propune să analizeze GIS techniques) is made according to the proximity of five critical tranziția de la un sistem tradițional de management al deșeurilor factors (CF) such as: residential area, industry & commercial către un sistem integrat la nivel național, regional și local. units, agricultural lands, rivers & lakes, forest and protected areas, Evaluarea amplasamentelor acestor depozite bazată pe analiza all these factors being sensitive to pollution. Thus, most of these buferelor (utilizând tehnici SIG) este realizată in funcție de old sites are badly or improperly located related to surroundings proximitatea a cinci factori critici, cum ar fi: zona rezidețială, and only few have an acceptable location in the study area! unitățile industriale și comerciale, terenuri agricole, râuri și lacuri, Therefore, the proposed method can be a necessary tool in EIA păduri și arii protejate, toți acești factori fiind sensibili la poluare. studies of these environmental threats at regional scale. Astfel, majoritatea acestor amplasamente sunt rele sau necorespunzatoare față de imprejurimi și numai câteva au o Keywords: landfill, urban area, GIS, multi-scale analysis, amplasare acceptabilă in zona de studiu! Prin urmare, metoda waste management propusă poate deveni un instrument necesar în studiile EIM ale acestor amenințări de mediu la scară regională. Cuvinte-cheie: depozite de deșeuri, zone urbane, SIG, analiză multi-scalară, managementul deșeurilor 2008;). In the case of the existing ones, the buffer Introduction analysis of non-compliant landfills from Neamț Landfills are the main option in urban waste County (North-East Region) reveals certain management systems from new EU members environmental issues on local landscape (Mihai et despite recent improvements of infrastructure in this al., 2013a; Mihai et al., 2013b). Regional studies on sector (Mihai and Apostol, 2012). Furthermore, most waste management issue are necessary for a multi- of these sites didn’t comply the Landfill Directive scale assessment of EU targets and objectives (1999/31/EC) being scheduled to be closed. The related to geographical features at regional and local improper location of non-compliant landfills in the scale (D’Alisa et al., 2012, Passarini et al., 2011; Lin proximity of urban areas led to complex pollution of and Chen, 2009; Mazzanti et al., 2009). Also, spatial surroundings. Urban waste collection services from analysis of waste indicators are a necessary tool in Romania still did not cover the full population (Mihai assessment or monitoring of waste management et al., 2012, Mihai, 2012a) and on the other hand, sector (Keser et al., 2012; Pandey et al., 2012; these services are poorly developed in small towns, Mihai, 2012b, Mihai and Lămășanu, 2013). favoring the illegal dumping (Mihai, 2013; Mihai et al., 2011). Methods This paper examines the territorial and In order to examine the current situation of non- environmental implications of old and new waste compliant landfills at urban level and location of new management facilities at different scales highlighting waste management facilities, we consulted several the current disparities. GIS techniques are currently reports of environmental authorities, regional and used in literature for EIA studies or to determine local waste management plans. Spatial analysis of more proper sites of future landfills, combining with indicators using thematic cartography reflects other methods such as multi-criteria analysis (Sener regional and local disparities (Fig. 1). et al., 2010; Sauri-Riancho et al., 2011; Yashon et al., 2011; Moeinaddini et al., 2010; Sumathi et al., 201 forumgeografic.ro Landfills – territorial issues of cities from North-East Region, Romania Figure 1: The transition to a modern waste management infrastructure GIS techniques are used for mapping these old Mission). Others vector layers such as hydrographic sites in the proximity of urban areas from Norh-East network and roads (classified by rank in European, Region. This procedure was achieved using Google national and county roads) were performed based Earth images. The black polygons west overlay on on 1:25000 topographic map of Romania in Gauss- digital elevation model (DEM) on regional scale. Kruger projection using as GIS soft the TNTMips The DEM was performed based on digital software 7.0. Built-up areas from ATU datasets such as SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography (Administrative-territorial units) of towns were © 2014 Forum geografic. All rights reserved. 202 Forum geografic. Studii și cercetări de geografie și protecția mediului Volume XII, Issue 2 (December 2013), pp. 201-210 http://dx.doi.org/10.5775/fg.2067-4635.2013.244d extracted from Corine Land Cover (CLC-2005). The geographical conditions. In the case of more aim of these maps is to analyze the territorial detailed studies at local scale, these factors may be implications of dumpsites in a geographical context. completed with other ones. Also, the assessment Buffer area (2 km) shows the territorial implications table can be modified according to local features of of each site to surroundings (Fig. 2). the county. This analysis is more detailed at local scale (town), using the land use for each site (inside the Discussion buffer area of 2 km) extracted from CLC at regional scale. In order to examine the distance from landfill Non-compliant landfills are scheduled to be site to surroundings and to highlight the improper closed in the period 2004-2017 (Fig. 1). This distances to critical factors (CF) such as, residential schedule is established following the G.Ono area (CF1- continuous urban area), industry & 349/2005 which transposed the Landfill Directive commercial facilities (CF2), agricultural land (CF3) (1999/31/EC). rivers & lakes (CF4), forest and protected areas These sites are ordinarily located inside the (CF5) buffer areas of 1 km were also delimited. administrative territorial units (ATU) of towns, These factors are critical because they are increasing the impact on urban environment. Others sensitive to any environmental pollution threatening are located on the range of periurban villages such the human health and the local biodiversity. as Albești (Mangalia town), Glina (serving Bucharest Proximity of a non-compliant landfill to these critical and other small towns from Ilfov County), Gălbinași factors increases the vulnerability to complex (Buzău town), Tomești (Iași town) etc. Most of this pollution. The location and establishment of sanitary old landfills excedeed the initial design capacity, protection area must be determined by EIA studies increasing the toxic potential for local environment. following the procedure of Order no. 757/2004, The closure of these sites does not solve the otherwise, national regulations stipulates that such pollution issue. Lack of waterproofing systems will sites must not be located in the proximity of continue to favor the leachate infiltration into residential areas, rivers, protected areas at least at 1 phreatic or surface