DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.1047
title: Fuzzy-logic-based social impact assessment: a case study of Praeksa Mai dumpsite in Samut Prakan, Thailand

description: In Thailand, the problem of continued insufficient solid waste management (SWM) and use of unsanitary disposal sites are increasingly recognized due to the rapid increase of the urban population. The disregard of sufficient environmental and public health protection has led to a growing negative public perception of local municipal solid waste. The planning and management of urban SWM infrastructure play an important role in deciding the fate of public health and the quality of life of residents. The experience of living with these negative externalities of disposal sites generally leads to the development of poor public perception, public acceptance on landfill siting decisions, and the development of sustainable SWM. To establish a good basis for the development of sustainable SWM, there is a need to develop a social acceptance indicator that reflects the negative public perception of residents towards a disposal site. The social acceptance indicator can inform the public and local government about how the quality of life of residents in different locations is affected by the presence of disposalsites. Proper SWM policies can be developed to resolve the poor public perception and quality of life issues. This paper proposes a social acceptance assessment approach for a municipal waste disposal site that can be used in conjunction with public perception survey data. This research uses fuzzy logic methodology to analyze and transform the public perception survey data from our previous public perception study of Praeksa Mai dumpsite, Thailand, to create social acceptance indicators. The proposed assessment approach considers the estimatednumber of population and geographical data of the affected areas, by using GIS software. Based on our approaches, the indicator identified as total impact is presented in the unit of the equivalent number of the affected people. The indicator allows the comparison of the impacts that could occur when siting a sanitary landfill with similar characteristics at different locations. The benchmarking of the impacts can lead to a perception-based site selection process. In our analysis, the Likert-scale perception responses obtained from the previous questionnaire survey are transformed into fuzzy membership, through five steps: Fuzzification, Normalization, Weighting, Population impact estimation, and Defuzzification. The main contribution of the research is to incorporate the population data into the impact estimate procedure. As a result, the estimated impact represents the exposure impact perceived by residents around the disposal site. In most studies, the estimated impact is based on the public perception of experts with no exposed population consideration. Based on our results, the estimated number of the affectedpeople for zone 1 (0 to 1.5 km), zone 2 (1.5 to 3 km), and zone 3 (3 to 5.5 km) are 9,620, 35,071, and 92,914 people, respectively. The total equivalent number of the affected people, from 0 to5.5 km, is 137,605 people. This information is useful in sanitary budget allocation.Finally, the total impact estimation shows as efficient and reasonable impact indicators. Based on our approaches, identifying a requirement before making-decision will increase the chances that we will select the most satisfying alternative possible.