Urban Vulnerability Assessment in Earthquake Using AHP, Crisis Management Point of View

One of the most important issues of today's world is increasing of physical expansion of urban areas and cities which emanate from the rapid urbanization process. Modern cities, that are samples of development, are subjected to most severe natural disasters such as earthquakes. Iran, due to its location and geotechnical conditions, is located on earthquake belt and frequently exposed to destructive earthquakes. Undoubtedly, irreparable damages were caused by lack of plan ahead in order to deal with earthquake risks. Lack of preparation to deal with the adverse complications of the issue is very important. Therefore, efforts against these problems in the world today have created a topic called crisis management. Crisis management provides community for prevention, preparedness, disaster relief and recovery by planning an appropriate program. In this study, it was tried to discuss and evaluate the principle processes of crisis management against earthquake. On the other hand, with regard to the implementation of crisis management programs through data analysis and possible data, the methods of Multi Criteria for Earthquake crisis management of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was introduced and its application was fully described. An attempt has been made to the principles of crisis management discussed in the earthquake. Qazvin was selected as a case study, and the analytical methods for assessing the vulnerability of 19 urban areas were performed. Analytic Hierarchy Process evaluation method was used to assess the vulnerability of the city, by classifying vulnerability of Qazvin against the earthquake crisis in 3 criteria: (I) Physical dimensions and physical resistance texture, (II) The amount of urban texture responsibility in order to aid after crisis, (III) Possibility of city's reversibility after the crisis and divide these criteria into 20 sub-criteria. The priority of sub-criteria was evaluated by questionnaire survey that distributed through related experts. Based on the findings of research, it was concluded that from 19 areas of city, 2 areas had high vulnerability, 6 areas had medium and 11 areas had a little high potential of damage vulnerability. High population density, urban texture of old and repairable buildings, lack of relief and medical services, a few organic texture area, sidewalk length with less than 6 meters width in the region and lack of open spaces in the area were the most important reasons that caused the high vulnerability of urban texture of Qazvin city in areas 10 and 18. Keywords: Crisis Management, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Urban, Vulnerability Assessment, Earthquake