Modelling MSW Landfills With KNMI Radar Precipitation Data
M.A. Vonk (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
Timo Heimovaara – Mentor (TU Delft - Geoscience and Engineering)
Marc Schleiss – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Atmospheric Remote Sensing)
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Abstract
The goal of this bachelor thesis is to compare different datasets of precipitation from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute for the purpose of modelling municipal solid waste landfills. It is essential to develop after-care methods for landfills so the future generations do not have to cope with the burden of the emission potential of the contaminants. Due to the complex and inhomogeneous nature of the landfill systems modelling is an essential part of understanding the process and predicting the behaviour of the emissions in the future. To model the mass balance an estimate of the precipitation is needed which can be retrieved from two datasets; rain gauges and the precipitation radar. The precipitation radar dataset has a higher resolution and might provide another, and maybe better, estimate for the modelling of the landfills. To see whether this is the case first a comparison for the daily scale is made, second a statistical analysis is performed to determine the difference in distributions between the datasets and third the datasets are compared as a result of the model of the landfills. The results of these comparisons and test show that the radar precipitation data gives a more accurate estimation on a daily basis but the trend in rainfall between the radar precipitation and the automatic rain gauge system is similar. The thesis concludes that the input of the radar dataset in the model creates a better model of the landfill on both a daily basis as on the long-term.