Emissions from landfills (waste dumps) are responsible for about 11% of global human-made methane emissions. We have recently demonstrated we can detect and quantify large landfill methane emissions from space.
We do this by using a combination of satellites (Maasakkers et al., 2022). With TROPOMI, we have detected over 55 urban hot spots worldwide, which were used to guide targeted GHGSat observations which zoom-in at 25 m resolution and have shown large emissions coming from individual landfills. As such, we are able to identify the largest methane emitting landfills worldwide.
Methane emissions from waste are expected to increase with growing population. As such, there is a clear need to reduce these emissions. In the Targeting Waste emissions Observed from Space (TWOS) project funded by the Global Methane Hub, we use satellites to monitor emission from landfills at ten different sites in the south. We provide this information to local authorities and operators in support of methane emission mitigation.
