strategic management of municipal debris aftermath of an earthquake

earthquakes in urban areas leave behind a considerable amount of debris, which delays the relief services and the reconstruction activities. the relief work would be impossible without the removal of debris from the main access roads to the devastated areas. the proper implementation of this endeavor requires a long-term management of debris. this article discusses development of strategic management for earthquake debris in the city of tehran. thus, the pertinent strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges are identified in order to assess the actual and potential debris management capacity of tehran. the personal judgments are used in a quantitative strategic planning matrix (qspm) in order to prioritize the strategies. the results of this research show that the sum of attractiveness numbers for the internal factors evaluation (ife) matrix is 2.3, which is less than 2.5. it indicates that weaknesses are more dominant than the strengths. moreover, the sum of attractiveness numbers for external factors evaluation (efe) matrix is 3.3, which indicates more potential opportunities than potential challenges. the analysis of results points out that the most important strategies in regard to the development of debris management plan are the accurate estimation of volume, weight and type of earthquake debris; reinforcement of the present structures; proper design of structures under construction; utilization of experiences from other earthquake prone countries; recycling and reuse of debris and construction wastes; and identification of the temporary debris depot sites within tehran.