Prioritization and Analysis of Watershed: A Study Applied to Municipal Solid Waste

This paper shows a watershed prioritization analysis applied to municipal solid waste. The study area was the macrowatershed “Cañón del Sumidero”, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Geographic information systems, multi-criteria evaluation techniques, as well as several geomorphometric, land use, vegetation and waste management variables were used. The results indicate that, of the set of watersheds analyzed (4 subwatersheds and 80 microwatersheds), only 14 (2 subwatersheds and 12 microwatersheds) have high priority, since they are severely affected by the mismanagement of solid waste. This is also due to the major presence of urban settlements, which are places with different dynamics in terms of population growth, migration, as well as access to infrastructure and services, such as collection and final disposal of waste. Additionally, the incidence of certain biophysical and geomorphometric variables, such as steep slopes, high rainfall and high drainage density, among others, exacerbate the waste-related problems. The remaining watersheds (2 subwatersheds and 68 microwatersheds) showed moderate or low prioritization values because of the low amount of solid waste produced there. Finally, this work concludes that the regionalization of municipalities and the management of solid waste through decentralized operating agencies can help solve solid waste management problems since this approach would permit to delegate non-primary activities from watershed operating agencies to other specialized waste agencies.