Drones and methane sensors: a new frontier for circularity of resources in landfills

Urban landfills are among the main sources of fugitive methane (CH4) emissions, a greenhouse gas with a strong climate impact. Traditional monitoring methods, based on static chambers (“land boxes”), allow for point measurements but show significant limitations in terms of spatial representativeness and timeliness in detecting leaks. The estimates obtained, often reporting collection efficiencies above 98%, do not reflect the actual performance of many biogas recovery systems, which on average do not exceed 50%. This generates informational distortions that reduce incentives to adopt more effective mitigation strategies and limit the potential recovery of an important energy resource. This work illustrates a possible innovative solution to the highlighted issue, namely the use of drones equipped with spectrometric sensors for landfill monitoring, developed within the PRIN 2022 project as part of the collaboration between the Universities of Bari and Turin. These systems enable high-resolution mapping of emissions, even in areas that are difficult to access. More accurate detection also allows for greater valorization of captured biogas, fostering its energy recovery and reintegration into production processes, thus transforming landfills into active nodes of the circular economy.The widespread adoption of this technology requires overcoming operational, regulatory, and technical challenges: from the development of standardized protocols for flights, to the definition of regulatory accreditation criteria, up to managing atmospheric variability and landfill morphological complexity. The cited project aims to bridge these gaps and make this approach operational.