Enhanced landfill mining: from landfill characterization to sustainable dynamic landfill management

David Caterina is a senior geophysicist at the Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering of University of Liege (Belgium) with more than 10 years of experience in environmental geophysics. His research interests include the study of water resources, contaminated sites, soil remediation, characterisation of landfills and metallurgical sites. He is involved in several projects at European level dealing with the concept of circular economy where he promotes the use of geophysical methods to help characterise resources buried in landfills or former metallurgical sites. His extensive knowledge of geophysical methods and associated equipment often leads him to accompany and train new geophysical researchers. David holds a PhD in applied sciences (University of Liège, 2014) and a master in geological and mining engineering (University of Liège, 2007).

Renaud De Rijdt is the manager of ATRASOL srl (consulting firm in sustainable development and environmental techniques) and was at the origin of the design of the ELIF during the NWE INTERREG RAWFILL project. Renaud De Rijdt is a geological civil engineer, graduated from the University of Liège in 1985. He began his career first as an assistant and then as a research engineer at the Geological Engineering, Hydrogeology and Geophysical Prospecting Laboratories of the University of Liège, for which he carried out studies of hydroelectric developments (e.g. N’Zébela dam in Guinea, Peusangan I and II facilities in Sumatra), water drilling projects (Niger, Congo-Zaire) as well as geological and geotechnical studies of dams, tunnels, landslides, dumps, among other. From 1989 to November 1993, he held the position of project manager for ESI-European Software Institute, a subsidiary of MicroResearch nv, where he managed the “environment” department, which designed and implemented databases for major chemical and chemical companies. oil companies like Agip Petroli, Shell, Total, Ciba, Rhone Poulenc, Ucb, EIGA … For fifteen years, from November 1993 to December 2008, Renaud De Rijdt headed the Walloon subsidiary of the BENVITEC Group, a holding company specializing in civil engineering work related to the protection of the environment. It has developed at Walloon and international level the Group’s activities related to the collection and recovery of landfill biogas, the construction and rehabilitation of CETs, geosynthetic sealing and then the remediation of polluted soils and aquifers. It has managed around 500 projects for a total of more than 40 millions euros and has operated in Belgium, France, Africa and Southeast Asia.

Tom Debouny is a research geophysicist in the Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering at the University of Liege (Belgium) and holds a master's degree in Mineral Resources and Recycling. He has gained a lot of experience in the characterisation of contaminated sites and landfills focusing on their internal hydrodynamic behaviour using multiple geophysical methods. He has been involved in various projects dealing with the circular economy and enhanced landfill mining. In addition to his research activities, he is also a teaching assistant in various fields such as geophysics and engineering geology and has supervised internships for master students.

Cuinera Isenborghs is a project assistant for the Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM), focusing on sustainable and long term management of landfills, including the recovery of raw materials and rehabilitation aspects. Her background spans from geography and spatial analysis to sustainable development and environmental science. This knowledge base is supported by developed skills in Geographical Information Systems. Cuinera gained her first experience in sustainable waste management by writing her dissertation on the optimal spatial planning of waste incineration facilities in Flanders, in collaboration with the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) and OVAM. Thereafter, she joined OVAM as a project assistant for several European Interreg project on sustainable landfill management (RAWFILL, COCOON and REGENERATIS). Within OVAM, she manages the landfill database to support policy-making in view of sustainable redevelopment possibilities, prioritization and decision-making.

Itzel Isunza Manrique is a research geophysicist in the Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering at the University of Liege, Belgium. She has a multidisciplinary background based on Physics, Marine Geophysics, Archaeological prospection and recently, Environmental Geophysics. Currently she is a PhD candidate in Engineering Sciences and Technology at the University of Liege. She has over 4 years of experience in geophysical prospecting for landfill characterization, including data acquisition, processing, and interpretation of multiple surface geophysical methods. She participates in two multidisciplinary projects in line with the circular economy and resource recovery from landfills, focused on the solid waste sector and on past metallurgical sites. Her research interest includes the quantitative joint interpretation of multiple geophysical methods deployed in landfills to improve decision making in view of resource recovery.

Laura Lamair is currently project manager in the Department of Research & Development and Innovation at Société Publique d'Aide à la Qualité de l'Environnement (SPAQuE). She holds a PhD in physical geography and a master in Geology from the University of Liège. Laura has been involved in several international and European research projects (QuakeRecNankai, LADATSHA, SismAntioch Project, RAWFILL, NWE-REGENERATIS) and has worked in several countries (Japan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey) within the last 10 years. Her research mainly focuses on natural hazards (earthquake, flood and landslide). Now, she is based in Wallonia and currently in charge of the technical coordination of the European projects (RAWFILL, NWE-REGENERATIS).

Hadrien Michel is a geophysicist researcher at the Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering of the University of Liège. He holds an FNRS grant for his PhD research with the University of Ghent (Belgium) and the University of Liège (Belgium). His PhD research focuses on the implementation of inversion algorithms for geophysical data. He is at the core of the development of uncertainty assessment tools based on geophysical data. Hadrien is also a teaching assistant for the geophysical prospection courses at the University of Liege. Hadrien holds a master's degree in geological and mining engineering (University of Liege, 2018).

Sébastien Moreaux is Project engineer and has participated to the development of the ELIF during the NWE INTERREG RAWFILL project. He obtained his degree in bioengineering specialised in environmental science and technology at Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (University of Liège) in 2014. He learned the basis of computer sciences then worked for 3 years for CSD Ingénieurs as project manager for polluted soil investigations and remediation. He joined Atrasol in 2018 to work on the NWE INTERREG RAWFILL about landfill mining and INTERREG FWVL New-C-Land projects about reclaiming brownfields through the cultivation of biomass.

Claudia Neculau is currently the Head of the Department of R&D and Innovation at Société Publique d'Aide à la Qualité de l'Environnement (SPAQuE) and the coordinator of two INTERREG NEW projects (RAWFILL and NWE-REGENERATIS) which aims at the redevelopment of landfills and brownfield. She is also involved in different research programs concerning technical topics on brownfields and landfills (e.g., Posidon, EiClar). She has experience as project manager (8 years) for the rehabilitation of several sites in Wallonia (Belgium). Claudia Neculau holds a PhD in final settlements evaluation on landfills, and diplomas in Public relations in the Environment and in Civil engineering with specialisation in Water and Soil protection.

Frédéric Nguyen obtained his PhD degree at the Université de Liège in close collaboration with the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France (Prof. Denis Jongmans) in 2005 dedicated to the development and application of geophysical methods to detect and image active faults in slowly deforming regions. From a seismic hazard point of view, his research allowed unveiling surface ruptures associated with the strongest earthquake recorded in France (Provence) in the twentieth century. He then worked from 2005 to 2008 as a post-doctoral researcher at the Forschungszentrum Jülich within the framework of the European project ALERT on the sustainable management of water resources by automated real-time monitoring in coastal aquifers subject to seawater intrusion. His research interest then shifted towards environmental geophysics and inverse problems. Since 2007, he is a Professor in Applied Geophysics at the University of Liège where he leads a research team, and was appointed in 2010 as a part-time Professor at KU Leuven. The research focus of his group lies on one hand in solving geophysical inverse problems and associated topics and on another hand in the integration of geophysical data in highly multidisciplinary fields of research.

Eddy Wille joined OVAM in 1991 as project manager soil remediation and was closely involved in the development and organization of the new soil remediation department. Since 1995 he had leading management functions at several services (soil investigation (1995-2000), soil data management (2000-2003); head of department of remedial actions (2003-2012)). In 2012, he became senior advisor and responsible for the OVAM-program on Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM). In 2015, his team wrote the memorandum on Sustainable Stock Management of Landfills which was approved by the Flemish government. This concept was discussed with the members of several EU-projects (Cocoon, New-Mine, Minea) and this concept was renamed as Dynamic Landfill Management (DLM), in order to focus on the need to address landfills in a more active way and in view of revitalization in a broader context. In 1999, he wrote the memorandum on brownfield redevelopment which later on became the start of the brownfield program in Flanders (Belgium). From 2001 till 2004, he was chairman of the first steering committee on brownfields which resulted in the Law on brownfield covenants in 2007.  In 2009, he was appointed as negotiator and representative of the Flemish government in brownfield covenant projects (linked to the Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship Agency). Due to his intervention in 2017, landfill redevelopment is also considered as a specific type of brownfields. Till to date, he was involved in moreover 50 projects and is advisor of the Brownfield board of Flanders.