Thesis (BS Applied Mathematics) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2003

Solid waste has been one of the most significant environmental problems in Davao City. The City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) Waste Management Division collects daily solid wastes from different areas and sectors in the city and deposits these waste on the only existing dumpsite located at Tugbok District, Davao City. This study developed a mathematical model for short-term forecasting of the monthly collection of solid wastes based on the data collected for the period January 1996 to December 2002 using the Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) Model Data collections from January 1996-December 2201 were used for the model development and the remaining 12 observations were used for the model evaluation. The study obtained four statistically adequate models which were valid for forecasting. In model evaluation, models with non-seasonal differencing provided better forecast values with respect to error and closeness of fit to the actual observed values while models formulated with both seasonal and non-seasonal differencing has an over-estimation but followed the seasonal pattern on the historical data. All of these models satisfied the Goodness-of-fit test and are considered satisfactory for forecasting the monthly solid waste collection in Davao City.