Spatio-temporal Analysis of Open Waste Dumping Sites Using Google Earth: A Case Study of Kharagpur City, India

Google Earth provides high-resolution satellite images over a long period of historical time period which can be used to study land use/land cover (LULC) changes in any area over an extended period of time. In this study, Google Earth Pro was used to identify problems with current locations of solid waste dumping sites and conduct a time-series analysis of the areas occupied by waste dumping sites in Kharagpur city. Five dumping locations were studied of which three are official dumping sites, one is an illegal dumping site and the last one is an official dumping site which was cleaned in 2015. Satellite images of the same dumping locations were taken to evaluate changes in the areas of the dumping sites from 2010 to 2017. The results of the study show that most of the sites are situated very close to an airbase runway, railway line, residential area or highway/road which is in contravention of regulations. Time-series analysis shows that the sizes of all dumps have varied significantly with respect to time except for the unauthorized dumping site. The reasons behind the fluctuations in area are frequent burning of garbage and partial clean-up of the site due to local complaints. The methodology used in this study can be extended to an entire city or even several cities to find problems related to the existing illegal or official waste dumping site within a specific time period.