Assessment of Non-Physical Vulnerability at the Neighborhood Scale after Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Experience with a Qualitative Approach (Case study: Qodqoon neighborhood in Boroujerd)

Background and objective: The process of post-disaster reconstruction in developing societies has a high tendency for micro-scale physical renovation. This tendency, that ignore the non-physical issues, originate from the lack of large-scale planning expertise, the lack of social participation mechanisms and the political considerations that govern these countries that do not reduce vulnerability and in many cases will increase it instead. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the reduction of non-physical vulnerability of Qodqun neighborhood in Boroujerd in the post-earthquake reconstruction process in April 2006, according to the indicators and criteria for earthquake vulnerability reduction. Method: This is a descriptive and qualitative study through documentary study. The indices were extracted and then sub-indices evaluated through AHP method and weighting them; providing maps in GIS environment consider these indices in the neighborhood. Findings: The studied non-physical indices are classified into management, universal, urban guidance documents, service provision, demographic, social readiness, economic and research. The earthquake of 2006 Boroujerd, the opportunity for proper reconstruction to reduce vulnerability in Qodqun neighborhood during a 12-year inaccurate reconstruction process showed increased vulnerability in 5 of the mentioned indices and resulted in fixed vulnerability in the other three categories. Conclusion: The results show that the number of non-physical vulnerability in the neighborhood was 4.473 out of 5, which represents a very inappropriate situation for future disasters. The result is that the process of reconstruction of Qodqun neighborhood, based on just physical indices, did not reduce the vulnerability of the neighborhood in all its components, but also increased the vulnerability.