A Replicable Territorial Intelligence Protocol for Diagnosing and Intervening in Illegal Waste Dumping Critical Points

Introduction: Illegal dumping of municipal solid waste remains a persistent urban problem, generating environmental degradation, repeated public cleanup costs, loss of potentially recoverable materials, and fragmented institutional responses divided among citizen complaints, reactive cleaning, and occasional enforcement. Although recent studies have identified spatial, social, and service-related drivers of illegal dumping, a gap remains between territorial diagnosis and the design of integrated, auditable public responses.

Methods: This study develops, through a Design Science Research approach, a replicable territorial intelligence protocol for diagnosing and intervening in illegal waste dumping critical points. The artifact was built through an international literature review, incorporation of the Brazilian institutional framework for waste and sanitation governance, and methodological modeling of a seven-step system: standardized occurrence recording, spatial consolidation, calculation of a Critical Point Risk Index (CPRI), causal classification, response definition, monitoring, and recalibration.

Results: The study produced a complete protocol including a minimum data schema, defensible spatial aggregation criteria, a composite index based on normalized variables, auditable initial weights, a causal typology with explicit decision rules for hybrid cases, an intervention matrix, performance indicators, and gradual implementation maturity levels. The resulting artifact links spatial prioritization to differentiated responses in infrastructure provision, communication, service reorganization, enforcement, and material recovery pathways.

Conclusions: The resulting protocol provides a transferable methodological architecture to support public management of illegal dumping and strengthen circular economy strategies. Its main contribution lies in converting dispersed occurrence records into actionable territorial intelligence while preserving local calibration without requiring methodological reinvention in each municipality.