Qualitative assessment of methane emission inventory from municipal solid waste disposal sites: a case study

In developing countries like India, urban solid waste (SW) generation is increasing enormously and most of the SWs are disposed off by land filling in low-lying areas, resulting into generation of large quantities of biogas. Methane, the major constituent gas is known to cause global warming due to green house gas (GHG) effect. There is a need to study the ever-increasing contribution of SW to the global GHG effect. To assess the impacts, estimation of GHG emission is must and to avoid misguidance by these emission-data, qualitative assessment of the estimated GHG is a must. In this paper, methane emission is estimated for a particular landfill site, using default methodology and modified triangular methodology. Total methane generation is same for both theoretical methodologies, but the modified triangular method has an upper hand as it provides a time-dependent emission profile that reflects the true pattern of the degradation process. To check the quality of calculated emission-data, extensive sampling is carried out for different seasons in a year. Field results show a different trend as compared to theoretical results, this compels for logical thinking. Each methane emission-data is backed up by the uncertainty associated with it, this further strengthens the quality check of these data. Uncertainty calculation is done using Monte Carlo simulation technique, recommended in IPCC Guideline. In the due course of qualitative assessment of methane emission-data, many site-specific sensitive parameters are discovered and are briefly discussed in this paper.