Understanding Trends in Methane Emissions from Landfills through Repeat Aerial Surveys

While prior work has shown that official inventories underestimate landfill methane emissions compared to measurements, no systematic study of the spatiotemporal variation in landfill emissions exists. In this work, we report on results from quarterly, source-resolved, aerial methane measurements across 46 landfills in the Appalachian Basin.

While total landfill emissions were found to be consistent across all surveys, we observe significant variability in emissions from individual landfills, with total annual emissions of 76028 ± 1437 t per year. Local rainfall events up to a week before surveys resulted in approximately 29% higher emissions. We see that methane emissions can be empirically predicted based on the annual rate of bulk waste disposed, providing an independent method to validate field measurements.