SITE SELECTION FOR MARBLE WASTES USING MULTICRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS: A CASE STUDY IN BUCAK (BURDUR, TURKEY)

In Turkey, approximately 3840 ton/day marble waste originated from several marble producers. But only 20% of this amount is evaluated in different usage areas. Therefore, waste site selection is an important issue to minimize negative effects of marble wastes in environment. The main aim of this study is to perform site selection process using Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The Bucak District was selected for study area since there are many marble quarries throughout the region. To determine appropriate location for marble wastes, several parameters were taken into consideration such as distance from quarries, visibility from settlements, distance from settlements, distance from the roads, distance from surface water, landuse, lithology, slope and erosion. These parameters were determined according to environmental and economic impacts. The thematic map of the each parameter was prepared using GIS techniques and also, MCDA was used to measure the relative importance weighting for each criterion. The final suitability map was created with the aid of overlay analyses. Then, the study area is reclassified into three class scheme i.e. high, moderate and low suitable areas using equal interval classification method. To check the results of the methodology, the field investigations were performed and show that, the obtained results are compatible with field data. This study indicates that, this method is powerful tool especially for the fast decision requirement.