Geo-electrical Characterization and Monitoring of a Waste Landfill for Its Future Exploitation as a Bioreactor

This work deals with the geoeletrical characterization of a municipal solid waste landfill, and with the time-lapse monitoring of an infiltration test within the waste mass. The main objective is to understand the hydraulic behaviour of the wastes under a controlled water supply from the surface, in order to delineate the paths through which the water flows.

In fact, the landfill will be exploited as a bioreactor, in order to speed up the biodegradation of the organic fraction of the waste. Then, ensuring the adequate moisture content, through re-circulation of water or leachate, is essential to enhance the bacterial activity, and therefore the biogas production.

Geoelectrical characterization helped to locally understand the water infiltration processes, supplying useful knowledge for future plans of leachate re-circulation system.