Explaining the Model of Urban Resilience to Earthquake According to Natural Site (Case study: Qazvin, Iran)

Cities are among the most fragile life settlements due to their complex internal structure and the influence by different variables. Given the realities of these settlements, in devastating events such as earthquakes, these cities will be definitely more fragile; consequently, returning to normal life seems to be much longer and costly. Given the importance of the issue, in addition to variables taken into account by other researchers in terms of urban structure, this paper has a deeper look at the resilience of cities to earthquakes by considering the conditions of natural sites of cities. It also provides a model of resilience, discusses, and analyzes it in the city of Qazvin, which is located in a high-seismic region with a high relative risk zone. According to the preventive approach to resilience of cities, this program will significantly reduce damages caused by earthquake in the future. In this paper, the algorithm of this model is proposed based on the information obtained from the information analysis on resilience and earthquake, and with regard to the necessity of prioritizing the variables. In fact, this model places a high analytical priority on differentiation of different areas of cities based on natural conditions of their site, and it systematically addresses the issue from the outset. This causes the vulnerability of all parts of the city not to be considered the same under natural conditions and, according to the facts in the natural site, the effect of earthquake on the components of the city are observed, and the critical points are identified. The model output shows that vulnerability in Qazvin is so widespread that the strategy of action during disruption, and returning to initial state are ineffective, and it is better to focus on self-organization and increased pre-earthquake capacity.