A New Remote Sensing Method for Landfill Emissions Quantification

A method for the measurement of methane emission from a landfill is proposed. The method is based on the use of an Unmanned Airborne Vehicle (UAV), which transports a TDLAS detector (Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy) whose absorption wavelength is strictly selective for methane. The detector allows a vertical scan of the atmosphere with the ground acting as retroreflecting surface. When the scanning is performed downwind with respect to the emitting area, the emitted gas flux can be obtained as the integral of the methane concentration multiplied by the wind speed, over a plane perpendicular to the wind direction. In this paper a preliminary test of this measuring technique is presented.