Widespread environmental changes as well as economic events and factors have contributed significantly to migrations from and relocations of human settlements during the past years. Being in direct contact with natural environments, rural settlements have been on the forefront of dealing with these changes. The impacts are more tangible in developing countries, including Iran, which face numerous socioeconomic and management challenges. Despite this, a number of the residents of rural settlements refuse to migrate and decide to stay in their current place of living despite economic and environmental hardships. In this respect, the present research aims to investigate the reasons of this decision among the “trapped” populations by studying two villages of Famenin County in Iran, namely Amirabad and Jahanabad, using the qualitative methodology in the form of field interviews with the residents. The results indicate that while “employment,” “accommodation,” and “poverty” are the three main drivers, which contribute to the villagers’ decision for not migrating in general, social capital and psychological attachment are considered impactful drivers for not migrating among older villagers or those with a longer history of rural residence.
Abstract. Natural hazard disasters recovery has been addressed in the literature by different sectoral perspectives and scientific communities. Nevertheless, studies providing holistic approaches to recovery, integrating reconstruction procedures and socio-economic impacts, are still lacking. Furthermore, recovery has been only marginally explored from a pre-disaster perspective, in terms of planning and actions for better recovery before disasters occur. This paper provides a critical review of existing literature and guidelines on disaster recovery with the twofold aim of identifying current gaps and providing the layout to address multi-hazard recovery planning tools for decision-making. Disaster recovery literature is investigated in the paper by focusing on: the definition of the recovery phase and its separation or overlapping with other disaster risk management phases; the different destinations and goals that an urban system follows through recovery pathways; the requirements to implement a holistic resilience-based recovery roadmap; the challenges for shifting from single hazard to multi-hazard recovery approaches; the available recovery planning tools for optimal investment decision-making to increase physical assets resilience. Finally, the current challenges in multi-risk recovery planning are discussed. This review can be a ground basis for new research directions to help stakeholders in decision-making and optimise their pre-disaster investments to improve the urban system's recoverability.
An examination of population growth in Iran during the past three decades shows that the sharp increase in the rate of birth in the 1980s significantly expanded the base of the age pyramid of the Iranian population in that decade. Throughout time, this expanded surface has gradually transitioned to the higher levels of the pyramid and has now reached the age group of 25-29 and will soon reach the age group of 20-24, two age groups that form 1/4 of Iran’s population. Considering this and the expansion of urbanization in recent years, elderly citizens will constitute a large part of Iran’s urban population in the next 30 years. An urban elderly population has special needs and requires special social spaces. But a closer look at the comprehensive plans proposed for Iranian cities, which often have been prepared with the next 20 years in mind, shows that most of the government’s policies and plans in cities involve the needs of the younger generation. In other words, the current status of Iranian cities and the proposed plans will not meet the needs of the elderly in the coming decades. Using documentary research and analysis of the contemporary structural maps of Hamedan City, this study examined the urbanization challenges resulting from age transition in 2041 to meet the World Health Organization (WHO) efficient requirements in quality-of-life. The findings indicate that Hamedan’s current form and its urban development plans have fundamental flaws because of inattention to the phenomenon of age transition based on United Nations (UN) policies in the determination of land uses and accessibility to public spaces for elderly citizens and this creates social challenges in the city.
<p>The occurrence of a disaster can significantly affect the functionality of an urban system, by causing a series of direct and indirect impacts on different sectors and infrastructures. UNDRR, in its definition of &#8216;resilience&#8217;, stresses the significance of preserving and restoring the basic structures and functions of a system through risk management, to support it in recovering from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner. Indeed, after the occurrence of a disaster, a minimum set of structures and functions have to be in place to guarantee the system's adequate operation and allow the urban system to begin the recovery process.</p> <p>This research develops and applies the concept of the &#8216;basic minimum urban system&#8217; (BMUS), as the subset of physical assets of the urban system to be preserved in order to ensure continuing recovery efforts after a disaster. The BMUS must be determined in accordance with some defined criteria that indicate the relative socio-economic worth of the various assets and the significance of their contribution to the urban system's performance. When the urban system is exposed to multiple&#160;and potentially interacting (such as cascading, consecutive, compound, etc.) risks, the assets' contribution to the system's ability to deal with these complex multi-risk conditions needs to be considered and integrated into the BMUS determination.&#160;</p> <p>In light of this, the goal of this work is to establish a methodological framework that combines participatory planning techniques (such as Delphi, fuzzy cognitive mapping, etc.) with quantitative data (like GDP, demography, etc.) analysis to model the urban system and ultimately identify its most crucial components and their interdependencies as the BMUS.&#160;</p> <p>Since an urban area's characteristics and identity have a significant impact on the determination of its important physical assets, the relevance of a certain physical asset to be included in the BMUS may differ from one urban system to another. As a result, the final suggested approach must be able to provide a broad framework that takes into account the unique characteristics and requirements of the urban system and its inhabitants. In this study, incorporating local knowledge for recognizing and representing distinctive characteristics of the urban area in the analysis is accomplished through stakeholders' involvement through a participatory method.</p> <p>As a result, several indicators are developed to assess the significance of urban system components in a multi-risk environment exposed to earthquakes and floods, with a focus on improving the urban system's ability to recover from disasters. These indicators are designed to evaluate the relative socio-economic importance of various buildings and urban forms. Indicators are generated in two complementary approaches: 1) participatory with involving stakeholders to illustrate the various interdependencies (physical, functional, etc.) among urban system functions and 2) analysis of quantitative physical and socio-economic data that characterize the urban system and its constituent parts at three different spatial scales (e.g., macro, meso, micro).&#160;</p> <p>The developed indicators are tentatively tested for the Sanremo municipality of the Liguria region (Italy). With the aim of increasing ex-post recoverability, decision-makers could use these indicators as a basis to optimize their ex-ante investment.&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p>
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