Approaches to Assess Biocover Performance on Landfills

Different approaches to assess biocover performance on landfills are presented. Landfills are among the largest anthropogenic methane sources worldwide, ranking third after agriculture (livestock farming and rice cultivation) and losses from fossil fuel distribution, processing and mining. The use of microbiological investigations can provide useful information for material selection and further biocover operation. It is observed that properly designed biocovers need to include an adequate gas distribution layer to homogenize gas fluxes, spatial variability in emission patterns can be less pronounced, implying the achievement of more reliable results by grid-based investigation methods. The results show that gas measurements can be combined with isotope investigations to directly assess the in situ oxidation proportion.