Natural Hazards

The center of Amman (Downtown) is one of the most marvelous sites in Jordan as it represents a wide range of heritage through time and space. However, the Downtown suffers from severe disorders in terms of negative urban development due to the cross cutting cultures between the past and present. Despite of its historical and cultural richness, several factors affected the architectural uniformity of the area. The successive cultural effect is clearly marked in the downtown of Amman. Political factors, such as the arrival of the Iraqi and Syrian refugees, significantly controlled the urban planning development in a heterogeneous way created poor and overcrowded areas of immigrants due to many residential abusive areas. Moreover, the lack of innovation and maintenance of the entire downtown area with no changes through time in addition to the lack of awareness made the downtown unable to response to various emergencies. Natural hazards threats for examples earthquakes and floods are considered as a big challenge influencing the urban, economic and cultural development process, particularly due its location in a valley surrounded by seven hills. The current study focuses on finding solutions to overcome the mufti-folds of risk surrounding the area. Recommendations are put forwards for decision makers to maintain the Amman Downtown form further degradation.

BACKGROUND: Rural areas, usually when compared to other natural events, have the greatest vulnerability of human settlements. The aim of this study was to evaluate natural hazards as earthquakes, landslides, floods and identify high-risk zone in relation to the rural areas of the central township of Azna County, Iran. METHODS: Topographic and geology maps, elevation digital model, and seismic and meteorological data along with field studies to investigate the location of villages in terms of natural hazards of earthquakes, landslides, and flood were used. Then, effective factors were identified in each of the hazards, and grouped in separate layers. The Arc GIS software was used to develop and integrate maps; AHP model and paired comparison method were used to weight effective factors in expecting any of the natural hazards, and to compare the criteria one by one; fuzzy logic model was used to standardize the layers in Arc GIS software; and the overlay model index was used to integrate final layers of natural hazards and determine high-risk zones. RESULTS: 49 percent of villages in privacy due to the major and minor faults were in the zone of high earthquake risk. The risk of landslides in areas where rural areas were based, due to the low gradient very low and only 10% of the villages are at risk of landslides. 14% of the villages in the privacy due to the major rivers, flood risk and the risk of flooding is very high. Prioritization of rural areas in terms of natural hazards by using AHP model shows that the 8 villages were located in high-risk areas. CONCLUSION: Providing maps of potential natural hazards can be helpful in crisis management and identification of the high-risk settlements.

INITRODUCTION: The passive defense approach is one of the approaches in planning and organizing cities and residential complexes with the aim to reduce environmental hazards. Given the vital and sensitive position of cities, while preparing against military invasions, this approach provides special capabilities to cope with natural and human crises to a large extent. METHODS: This was an applied study conducted with a descriptive-analytical method. Data were collected reviewing the relevant texts, sources, books, and articles, as well as examining maps, interviews, and observations. The data were then analyzed using the geographic information system (GIS) software. In the next step, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis technique was employed to investigate the strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats of Rasht City, Iran. FINDINGS: Rasht City accounts for a considerable part of the population, facilities, and services of Guilan Province, Iran, which will experience great damage in case of occurrence of a natural or human disaster. The SWOT analysis results revealed that the strategy obtained was of a defensive nature. CONCLUSION: On the basis of the results obtained from the investigation of the sensitive land uses, it can be stated that the location of the land uses (particularly, sensitive and important ones) in Rasht does not follow the passive defense principles. In addition, the central areas of the city are more vulnerable due to the density of the important and sensitive uses in these areas. This implies that the city center is the most vulnerable area of Rasht in terms of the passive defense approach