Evaluating the Resiliency of Baghershahr against Earthquake

BACKGROUND: Because of the vulnerability of human settlements to natural disasters and damage caused by them, the study of the resilience of settlements has become critical in planning urban areas. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate resiliency of Baghershahr, a town with a population of 65000, locates in 4 km from Tehran city, against earthquake. METHODS: The research data were collected by survey method (questionnaire tool) and also by using statistical documents and documentary reports. AHP technique has been used to determine the coefficient of importance of indicators and descriptive statistics methods have been used in data analysis. RESULTS: The study area has, on average, only 36.6% of the ideal conditions of resiliency. The figure in institutional dimension was 25.5%, indicating that this dimension has lowest resilience compared with other dimensions. After this, the physical dimension has a figure of 31.7%. In case of economic dimension, the figure was 40.5% of the ideal rate of resiliency and the highest level belongs to the social dimension, which was 45.4%. CONCLUSION: The studied area is an example of Iranian settlements with very low resiliency. On one hand, low level of the resiliency of Baghershahr is due to the threats caused from its vicinity to the oil and gas refinery complex, the thermal power plant, the sulfur industry, and the numerous plastic recycling workshops, the huge stores of petroleum products, gas and crude oil and crude oil pipelines. On the other hand, it is due to sudden formation and uncontrolled rapid growth of the town which has been accompanied by widespread migration of low-income classes over the past few decades.