New methods for searching for waste disposal sites in the Chiang Mai-Lamphun basin, northern Thailand

The site-searching process for waste disposal sites should guarantee that t he best suitable site to construct a landfill will be selected by means tha t are reproducible and of scientific character. A method to achieve this is described for the Chiang Mai-Lamphun basin, northern Thailand, using new t echniques and methods. The process begins with the design of a map of poten tial barrier properties, which qualifies and displays each unit of the lege nd of a geological map that has a potential barrier property. The core of t his site-searching process is a newly developed PC database. With this data base, the lithological records of boreholes can be queried if they have pot ential barrier properties, and information on which class of properties the y belong to and whether they form a geological barrier can be ascertained. These data are overlaid with the map of potential barrier properties to giv e a map of potential barrier rock. This displays all areas with a geologica l barrier, and its thickness at the well locations.