This paper presents an approach to retrofit an existing municipal solid waste (MSW) dumpsite by enhancing the bioremediation process. The current practice of containing the waste in dumpsites/landfills is considered unsustainable due to their negative impact on the environment, society, and economy. Remediation of the existing open dumpsite helps in recovering the valuable land area at a faster rate due to the reduction in the time required for the waste stabilization process. The problem of leachate treatment can also be addressed adequately during the remediation process. Therefore, remediating an existing dumpsite can be classified as a step toward achieving sustainability in landfilling practice. In this study, an approach for remediating an existing municipal solid waste (MSW) dumpsite in Bangalore city is presented by addressing the three major aspects, viz., landfill gas (LFG), leachate, and the recovery of air space. In order to accelerate the biodegradation of MSW and avoid the possible groundwater contamination, a leachate recirculation system is designed. Modeling tools are used to estimate the LFG emission and to design the leachate collection and recirculation system. The methane oxidation potential of the digested mechanically and biologically treated (MBT) waste as a biotic system media is evaluated using column experiments. Biowindrows are then designed to mitigate the LFG emissions from the dumpsite.

As one of the most powerful natural catastrophes, floods pose serious risks to people’s lives, the integrity of infrastructure, and agricultural landscapes, which increases the toll they take on the economy and society. As a result, it becomes essential to continuously monitor these areas of vulnerability in order to support effective disaster response and mitigation efforts. Accurately defining the extent of floods is a problem for traditional flood mapping approaches, which emphasizes the vital need for modern technologies such as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging. Additionally, there is a need to develop computer-aided tools specifically designed for automatically identifying areas that are vulnerable to flooding using SAR data. Nonetheless, the lack of consistent large datasets presents a barrier that prevents these algorithms from progressing and being used in real-world scenarios. For this reason, the present study aims to develop a semi-supervised semantic segmentation algorithm for accurate flood region delineation in SAR data. In particular, the paper proposes labeling unannotated instances of data using a pseudo-label generation strategy. In order to accomplish this, the study suggests using a self-supervised trained teacher model to generate pseudo-labels and speed up the training procedure. The teacher model is then trained with a student model to efficiently extract features from the labeled data. Furthermore, the study presents a new semantic segmentation technique that uses convolutional neural networks to automatically identify flooded areas in SAR images. A comprehensive assessment conducted on publicly available datasets produces promising results. These results confirm the usefulness and possible relevance of the suggested methodology in enhancing efforts related to flood zone identification and management.

The study aims to investigate the application of anaerobic (AN), aerobic (AER) and semi-aerobic (SA) laboratory scale landfill bioreactors for stabilization of mechanically and biologically treated (MBT) waste of Bangalore city. All major parameters pertaining to the waste, leachate and biogas are continuously monitored during the experiment. Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) mass balance are carried out to understand the recovery/removal of C and N from the system. The biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand and nitrogen removal efficiency of the bioreactors are in the range of 83%–87%, 81%–87% and 96%–99%, respectively. Total settlement observed in the AN, AER and SA bioreactors is 15.25%, 23.92% and 10.80%, respectively. The performance of the three bioreactors are compared, and their suitability in treating the MBT waste from Bangalore city is discussed. The study shows that the AER bioreactor landfills can be used for remediating the existing municipal solid waste dumpsites in Bangalore city.