Methane flux and oxidation at two types of intermediate landfill covers

Methane emissions were measured on two areas at a Florida (USA) landfill using the static chamber technique. Because existing literature contains few measurements of methane emissions and oxidation in intermediate cover areas, this study focused on field measurement of emissions at 15-cm-thick non-vegetated intermediate cover overlying 1-year-old waste and a 45-cm-thick vegetated intermediate cover overlying 7-year-old waste. The 45 cm thick cover can also simulate non-engineered covers associated with older closed landfills. Oxidation of the emitted methane was evaluated using stable isotope techniques. The arithmetic means of the measured fluxes were 54 and 22 g CH4 m−2 d−1 from the thin cover and the thick cover, respectively. The peak flux was 596 g m−2 d−1 for the thin cover and 330 g m−2 d−1 for the thick cover. The mean percent oxidation was significantly greater (25%) at the thick cover relative to the thin cover (14%). This difference only partly accounted for the difference in emissions from the two sites.Inverse distance weighing was used to describe the spatial variation of flux emissions from each cover type. The geospatial mean flux was 21.6 g m−2 d−1 for the thick intermediate cover and 50.0 g m−2 d−1 for the thin intermediate cover. High emission zones in the thick cover were fewer and more isolated, while high emission zones in the thin cover were continuous and covered a larger area. These differences in the emission patterns suggest that different CH4 mitigation techniques should be applied to the two areas. For the thick intermediate cover, we suggest that effective mitigation of methane emissions could be achieved by placement of individualized compost cells over high emission zones. Emissions from the thin intermediate cover, on the other hand, can be mitigated by placing a compost layer over the entire area.