Monitoring Long-Term Waste Volume Changes in Landfills in Developing Countries Using ASTER Time-Series Digital Surface Model Data

Monitoring the amount of waste in open landfill sites in developing countries is important from the perspective of building a sustainable society and protecting the environment. Some landfill sites provide information on the amount of waste in reports and news articles; however, in many cases, the survey methods, timing, and accuracy are uncertain, and there are many sites for which this information is not available. In this context, monitoring the amount of waste using satellite data is extremely useful from the perspective of uniformity, objectivity, low cost, safety, wide coverage area, and simultaneity. In this study, we developed a method for calculating the relative volume of waste at 15 landfill sites in six developing countries using time-series digital surface model (DSM) data from the satellite optical sensor, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), which has accumulated more than 20 years of observational data. Unnecessary variations between images were reduced by bias correction based on a reference area around the site. In addition, by utilizing various reported values, we introduced a method for converting relative volume to absolute volume and converting volume to weight, enabling a direct comparison with reported values. We also evaluated our method compared with the existing method for calculating changes in waste volume based on TanDEM-X DEM Change Map (DCM) products. The findings of this study demonstrated the efficacy of the employed method in capturing changes, such as increases and stagnation, in the amount of waste deposited. The method was found to be relatively consistent with reported values and those obtained using the DCM, though a decrease in accuracy was observed due to the depositional environment and the absence of data. The results of this study are expected to be used in the future for technology that combines an optical sensor and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to monitor the amount of waste.