Physical Vulnerability Assessment of the Hashtgerd New Town against a Probable Earthquake

Aims & Backgrounds: The occurrence of earthquakes in urban areas, have destructive effects, and the inhabitants are increasingly suffering from their harmful impacts. It appears that preparing proactive planning before the disaster occurrence, may reduce damages, casualties and financial losses. This paper aims to identify the vulnerability of the physical fabric of Hashtgerd new town against a probable earthquake. Methodology: The research is applied and method is descriptive-analytical. Eight indicators, such as, accessibility to open spaces, building density, population density, land use, closeness to fault zone, access to vital services, accessibility to street network and passage's width were selected by using the opinion of experts and Likert scale. Through quantitative analysis of indicators and weighted each of them by AHP method in Expert Choice software program, the vulnerability of Hashtgerd new town was analyzed in GIS software. As a result, critical areas of the city were revealed. Findings: It is determined that only about 28% of the city, which includes phases one, two, three and part of phase four, are in a crisis situation. 54/91% of its area has low and very low vulnerability and 26/73%   have moderate vulnerability. Conclusion: It is recommended that, the following measures may pave the way of reducing the physical vulnerability of the city: Increasing the density of the city's open spaces and their proper distribution in the city, controlling the population and building density along the entrance axis and their balanced distribution in the city, increasing the number of vital centers, avoidance of fault area, especially in phases two, four and five, and the assignment of these areas to open spaces, planning for the use of wastelands and the non-proximity of incompatible land uses.