Urbanism impact on the environment Ramallah landfill as case study

Dissertant

Wahidi, Dima Jawdah

Thesis advisor

al-Sad, Rashid

Comitee Members

Mahmud, Nidal
al-Ghadban, Shadi

University

Birzeit University

Faculty

Faculty of Graduate Studies

University Country

Palestine (West Bank)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2009

English Abstract

Environmental protection and conservation are of utmost importance to many urban development and planning across the world.

Not only are the specific effects of development to be mitigated, but attempts shall be made to minimize the overall effects of development on the local and global environment.

This is commonly done through environmental assessment of urban infrastructure.

Environmental planning which aims to integrate the public sector urban planning with environmental concerns to ensure sustainable development, with special emphasis on resource extraction, energy production and waste disposal.

Urban planner is likely to use a number of quantitative tools to forecast impacts of development on environment.

Solid waste disposal in Palestine did not follow any environmental planning legislations in the past.

The open random or planned dump sits became a landscape feature in the area and one of the land use forms.

The site selection of current municipal dumpsites was not according to environmental or urban planning standards.

Attempts to investigate the social and environmental impacts, as a result of these practices are lacking.

The aim of this study was to assess the social and environmental aspects of the land use forms in urban planning.

The landfill sitting of Ramallah city was taken as a case study.

V The study was based on Quantitative data obtained from lab analysis of storm water runoff over the landfill that gave an indicator of the pollution to the ground water and the area surrounded.

Also qualitative data analysis using questionnaire was made to assess the social and public health impacts of close landfill on the built up areas, the analysis of the data and tabulation was performed using the SPSS 0.9 program.

The study results showed that the storm water runoff over Ramallah landfill carries a high concentration of Cr, Mn, Cu, Pb, and Fe, which reached in some samples respectively about (0.126 mg/l, 0.307 mg/l, 1.557 mg / l, 0.081 mg / l, and 5.65 mg / l).

The presence of high concentration of heavy metal in water means that the water is polluted, toxic to human health.

Also the site investigation showed that 77.4 % of the families living nearby the landfill are suffering from odor problems, 62.7 % are suffering from dust emission in the area, 68.0 % are suffering from the smoke emission, and 23 % of the families explained that one or more family member suffers from breath diseases and allergies due to the air pollution from the dust and smoke released from the dumpsite.

Furthermore 79.7 % of the people agreed on that the dumpsite affect their daily social activities not only the health.

In general the landfill has an negative impact on the social activities and on the public health issues, which recommend to the landfill fast closure, and in the present time preventing the open solid waste burning at the landfill which needs enhancing of the dumpsite control.

Main Subjects

Earth Sciences, Water and Environment

Topics

• Management
• Urbanization
• Palestine
• Ram Allah
• Environmental aspects

No. of Pages

153

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-301946