Significance of baseline study in landfill risk assessment

Environmental awareness and concerns of the public over potential environmental threats posed by anthropogenic activities have grown rapidly worldwide in the last decade. Risk Assessment and Risk Management are very vital to the effective management of the environment against hazards arising from inevitable anthropogenic activities, thereby resulting in a cost-effective compromise between financial and environmental costs and ensuring that the philosophy of 'sustainable development' is adhered to. In parallel with the above, environmental legislation is becoming more and more strict as well as global, and a realisation of the significance and effectiveness of risk assessment in environmental management has kick-started the imposition of risk assessment as a legal requirement.
In our literature review mainly related with landfill risk assessment, no evidence has been found of a holistic risk assessment methodology. In fact, a range of knowledge gaps has been found in the literature reviewed to date. One of these gaps in knowledge is the procedure for carrying out Baseline Study, which covers a range of subject areas, including Geology, Hydrology, Topography and Climate. This paper, with reference to the relevant literature reviewed, discusses the extent to which Baseline Study is missing in landfill risk assessment approaches and the elements that should contribute to the procedure of Baseline Study in order to have a successful landfill risk assessment.