GIS-based Sites Selections For Anaerobic Digester In Leicestershire, UK

There has been a growing interest in the renewable resources for the protection of theenvironment across the world. Anaerobic digester (AD) has been recognised as one of themost leading renewable energy producers which could promote and convert the biogas andwaste into renewable resources including electricity and heat. As a consequence, research onthe suitability and availability of AD and the sites selection of AD systems is highly needed.This paper mainly focuses on the site selection of AD systems within the study area ofLeicestershire. It has been a complicated task for the selection of AD sites in terms of factorsincluding environmental, social, economic and technical. With the help of geographicalinformation systems (GIS), a land suitability model which takes into consideration all thefactors to locate the potential sites for the installation of AD systems is proposed. The analytichierarchy process (AHP) of multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) would be applied forthe evaluation of the environmental, economical and social factors by weighting the relativeimportance for the selection of potential AD sites. The role of GIS environment is to helpanalyse the exclusive and selective criteria put forward through AHP method and generate theland suitability model. The method would be applied to the study area of Leicestershire forthe sites selection of AD systems within the area. Based on the criteria proposed, a series ofmap would show the process of AHP method and the final suitability map could help identifythe most suitable sites for AD systems. The GIS-based land suitability model proposed byapplying the AHP method concerning all the determining factors in this research can helpimprove other studies with respect to site selection.