Historical Landfill Detection & Mapping

Local Government is responsible for managing a vast number of retired landfills that were constructed at a time when record keeping was limited or non-existant. Councils often don’t even have access to records that can be used to accurately locate historical landfilling operations which presents a sigificant problem for managers trying to comply with current legislation for landfill aftercare.

12P Consulting has built up significant experience in the survey and detection of of old, decomissioned landfills. One recent project located in North East Victoria, involved the aerial survey of a 15Ha site located around the confluence of two creeks on very flat terrain.

There were no obvious signs of past landfilling or disturbance and the site had been partially rehabilitated with significant new vegetation growth and a stand of mature trees over the entire site.

After conducting a ground and aerial feature and level survey on the site using one of our UAVs we were able to visually show the slight variations in ground surface elevation which clearly showed the location of past landfilling on the site.

As the survey was precisely geo-located, a plan showing the coordinates of the landfilling extent was produced which then enabled the Council to preicsely mark out the boundaries.

Full site survey georeferenced onto a background aerial photo with the cadastre overlaid

The landfill extents identified