مطالب

INTRODUCTION: At the time of natural disasters, various organizations are responsible for crisis management. Each organization holds responsibilities corresponding to its mission statement. The absence of coordination is one of the primary obstacles regarding crisis management at the time of the disaster, caused by inconsistent decisions and a lack of mutual perception of the crisis. The more compatible the strategy selection process of organizations is, the fewer natural disaster casualties will be. METHODS: This study aims to strategically analyze the crisis management of April 2019 Golestan floods through the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) method, highlighting the role and performance of the Red Crescent Society. The selected tool was a descriptive-analytic field-based documentation survey questionnaire providing the chance to investigate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Finally, we determined the optimal strategy. FINDINGS: The results revealed that the average values of internal and external factors for all units were above 2.5. Therefore, SO is the optimal strategy whose emphasis is on using the strengths and opportunities faced by the Red Crescent Society to the fullest and other flood management bodies. CONCLUSION: Considering that the crisis-management-related agencies ought to operate as a unified system to decrease casualties, the need to adopt proper strategies to enhance coordination in associated organizations is one of the leading priorities of Golestan Province.

INTRODUCTION: Identification of the settlements located in high-risk zones in terms of natural hazards is one of the first steps in risk management and development planning. This study aimed to identify villages exposed to earthquakes and floods in South Khorasan province. METHODS: The present study used the Analytic Hierarchy Process method to evaluate the validity and reliability of measuring instruments through exploratory factor analysis. Since the value of the KMO index was 0.879, the number of samples was sufficient for analysis. Moreover, the significance of the Bartlett test was less than 5% and Cronbach's alpha coefficient was obtained at 0.856; accordingly, the questionnaire was reliable. FINDINGS: Based on the spatial analysis of the seismic vulnerability, 214 and 502 villages were in the zone of very high and high vulnerability, respectively. Moreover, the results of flood vulnerability showed that the southern and northwestern parts of South Khorasan province had the lowest vulnerability. The number of villages located in the very high vulnerable zone was very limited and included only seven villages of Chenesht, Kalateh Abbas, Takti Ti, Tangel Behdan, Ebru, Khankuk, and Ostan Siah, which are located in the east of the province. CONCLUSION: Based on the integrated results of two hazards (i.e., earthquakes and floods), it is observed that 523 rural settlements are in a very high-risk zone, which accounts for 14.7% of the total settlements in the South Khorasan province, compared to the total rural settlements. Furthermore, the highest dispersion frequency of rural settlements is in the zone of moderate vulnerability. This zone with 1,344 settlements includes about 37.7% of the total settlements in the province