Selection of appropriate liner type would be the most important factor to prevent groundwater contamination by leachate from waste management site. This report introduces the IWEM (Industrial Waste Management Evaluation Model) developed by US EPA to evaluate the potential pollution of groundwater under the waste management unit and to suggest an appropriate type of liner, and provides with the results of IWEM application to a coal-ash landfill site in Korea as a case study. IWEM uses a standard method using a database, a decision-making process based on site characteristics, and the user-friendly input-and-output system. Authors evaluate this model to be applicable in Korea provided that the database is replaced into local data.