Review of Expert System (ES), Geographic Information System (GIS), Decision Support System (DSS), and their applications in landfill design and management

This paper provides the reader with a brief discussion on Expert System (ES ), Geographic Information System (GIS), and Environmental Decision Support System (EDSS) technologies and their applications in environmental engineer ing in general and in landfill design and management in specific. It also b rings into attention the benefits of integrating ESs and GISs together with simulation models (SM) in a decision support systems (DSS) framework to so lve complex environmental problems, facilitated by the new advancements of computer technologies (both in hardware and software). Examples of such int egration are provided to reflect how such a system can improve landfill des ign and management. Finally, the discussion concludes with the fact that al though solving landfill design problems could greatly benefit from such a c ombination of technologies, there have been no attempts to combine ES, GIS, and SM for the comprehensive evaluation of landfill design and performance .