A comprehensive review on the integration of geographic information systems and artificial intelligence for landfill site selection: A systematic mapping perspective

Properly selecting landfill sites for waste disposal is crucial for mitigating environmental and public health risks. Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques have emerged as valuable tools for identifying suitable landfill locations. This study presents a systematic mapping study (SMS) that investigates the usage of GIS and AI in landfill site selection. We searched six databases (IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Science Direct, Emerald Insight, Taylor & Francis Online and Web of Science) using predefined keywords related to landfills, GIS and AI. From 858 initially retrieved articles, we selected 48 relevant articles for in-depth analysis. Our research aimed to answer various questions, such as publication trends, the geographic distribution of case studies, criteria for assessing landfill suitability, tools and techniques employed, preliminary site screening methods, decision-making processes, limitations and future research directions. We used bubble charts, bar charts and tables to visualize the results. The findings of our study highlight the growing interest in using GIS and AI for landfill site selection and emphasize the importance of incorporating multi-criteria decision-making techniques. Furthermore, the results reveal the need for developing more advanced AI models, addressing the limitations of current approaches and exploring novel visualization techniques for enhancing landfill site selection processes. This study provides valuable insights for researchers and practitioners in waste management, environmental science and geoinformatics. It sets the groundwork for future research on improving GIS- and AI-based landfill site selection methodologies.