Develop index of urban resilience for earthquakes

Background: The study of cities resilience against earthquakes is one of the requirements for planning to reduce damages, fatalities, and financial losses due to earthquakes. Resilience has many definitions and there is no a comprehensive model for calculating; Therefore, this paper aims to provide a quantitative indicator for resilience. Method: First, effective indicators and dimensions in resilience of cities against earthquake were extracted by using library studies and obtaining experts opinions. Then, the weight of each dimension and indicator was determined based on expert judgment and paired comparison method and finally, the resilience index was introduced. Findings: In this paper, while introducing a summary of disaster definitions and resilience, the dimensions and indices obtained from previous studies and expert opinions were introduced. These dimensions and indicators represent the factors influencing urban resilience against earthquakes. Accordingly, the urban fabric dimension, which represents the city structure, plays a major role in the resilience of the city against earthquakes, after which the security dimension is the most important factor in resilience of the city. Regarding the indexes, in the physical dimension, the "building height / passage width ratio" index has the most impact on the resilience of the earthquake against the earthquake in experts’ opinions. The number of building floors has little impact and does not matter much about vulnerability in case of using proper structure, sufficient space, and easy access to the passages. Conclusion: The results show that the introduced index for different cities, as well as various strategies for retrofitting and increasing resilience can be calculated and make it possible to choose an optimal strategy for increasing resilience. It is also possible for planners and decision makers to observe the effects of different sections on the resilience of the city or region under study.  

Keywords:

: resilience , earthquake , index , dimensions , تاب‌آوری , زلزله , شاخص , ابعاد