Multifunctional rural development is a proven in many European countries way of improving standard of living of farming families. The term also describes a lifestyle, implies maintaining rural traditions without resigning from the conveniences of modern civilization. Developing rural areas in this manner means accomplishing multitude of diverse projects. Multifunctional rural development is not only siting non-agricultural enterprises in these areas, but also preserving the landscape, the environment and traditional rural culture. The paper describes how AHP - Analytic Hierarchy Process - has been applied to assess multifunctional rural development of 11 randomly chosen rural communes located in Małopolska Province. The way of accomplishing the required tasks has been examined from a fresh perspective and a novel manner, taking into account numerous factors and relations between them, of arriving at the planned goals has been proposed. Because of its complexity, the structure of the problem is presented hierarchically. Priorities (weights) of each component element of the structure has been estimated by comparing them one to another in pairs according to the 9-point Saaty scale. Determining the priorities of component elements allowed to rank the communes according to their multifunctionality. The conducted sensitivity analysis made it possible to dynamically change the ...
Problems of correct procedure of waste handling, their economic utilization and minimizing their harmful environmental effect belong to the most important issues of natural environment protection. Poland, which entered the socio-economic structures of the European Union in May 2004 must confront this problem through adjusting its waste management legislation including also the problems of municipal waste deposition. A failure to observe the EU provisions is connected with financial penalties. Therefore the work aims to present the most important elements of development of municipal waste management history from the viewpoint of waste deposition, discuss the most important aspects of municipal waste deposition and characterize the situation of municipal waste disposal in the malopolskie province. Only one municipal waste disposal technology, i.e. deposition has been presented in the paper because this particular technology poses the gravest hazards to the natural environment and moreover currently is has been the most popular in Poland. This form of waste disposal has been ascribed a great importance, especially because of the site selection. The development and current situation of legislation on municipal waste deposition were presented. The most important issues of waste deposition were addressed, and the situation of municipal waste disposal in the malopolskie province ...
Selection of localizations for municipal landfills belongs to complex multicriteria decision making problems. The paper presents a methodology developed for selecting localizations for municipal landfills based on Geographic Information System (GIS) technique coupled with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Joining these two methods makes possible incorporation of various quantitative and qualitative factors and solving the problem in a holistic way. GIS technique enables to include criteria resulting from the legal directives (so called rule-out criteria) and conducting spatial assessment in view of the area usability for waste deposition. In result we obtain areas suitable for waste deposition (predisposed) and the terrains where any localization of landfills is absolutely prohibited. AHP method was used to select the most suitable localization variant from the set of areas predisposed for waste deposition. For this purpose the structure of the task was presented as a developed hierarchy model with the scale of influence. Construction of the model required a proper selection of criteria and sub-criteria, and the scale of influence of individual sub-criteria on the considered localizations. Owing to the method of its construction the developed multi-criteria model with the scale of influence is a universal one and may be applied also for problems other ...
A total activity cycle of all municipal landfill sites operated in the malopolskie province was assessed in the paper using a variant method. For this purpose, two prognoses of municipal waste generation were developed for the 2008-2048 time horizon, which allowed to assesses the quantity of generated waste stream. Subsequently, various scenarios related to the management of the waste stream in the adopted time horizon were prepared. The suggested scenarios: status quo (SQ), realistic (REAL) and optimistic (OPT) determined the possibilities for various strategies (policies) of recovery and disposal of wastes, primarily based on various methods of their recycling, composting and deposition. On this basis the amount of municipal wastes sent to landfills was assessed. The quantities of wastes deposited on landfills were computed considering waste residues from individual technologies. While working on the scenarios , the authors were guided by the ways of municipal waste stream management used in the EU-15 countries and by the assumptions resulting from documents on the startegies of waste management. Analysis of landfill activity cycle revealed an alarming situation connected with fast filling up of the existing landfills in the malopolskie province. This situation concerns all scenarios, both for prognosis I and II. Reduction ...
The article addresses the most important issues of the mass service theory (queuing theory) useful for organization of municipal waste transfer stations. In modern waste management transfer stations (temporary waste deposition sites) are a most important issue, since they influence the way of waste transport to further distances and at lower costs. All elements composing the transfer station are interrelated by a technological process. The work aims highlight a potential utilization of queuing theory as a tool make more efficient the work at a transfer station. Examples of queues which happen at transfer stations were analyzed to illustrate the problem. Hypothetical data were used for computations. The article presents also the most important terms connected with transfer stations and an outline of queuing theory in its queuing theory in its aspect serviceable in the organization of work at municipal waste transfer stations. The input data assumed for the project, comprised mainly the waste quantity produced in the subsequent years of the transfer station operation (15-20 years), mean generated wastes (kg per person per day), the area serviced by the station (the number of inhabitants), mean rate of waste generation (tone per day) and also data pertaining to the current operation ...
