Earthquake Vulnerability Zonation of Mashhad Urban Fabric by Combining the Quantitative Models in GIS, Northeast of Iran

Abstract

Abstract:In this study, we determined vulnerability levels of urban fabrics against earthquake risk using spatial factors.Therefore to classify risk vulnerability zones of the Mashhad urban fabric we used parameters such as ratio of open spaces, size of lands differentiation, population density, occupied area by buildings, age of buildings, deteriorated urban fabrics, proximity to faults, and seismic grading. These parameters are derived based on Mashhad municipality districts then weighted by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and combined by the Standard Score Model in geographic information system (GIS). The results indicated that: first, the central district and districts of eight, three and four in Mashhad have the most fabric vulnerability against earthquakes, respectively. Second, the urban texture of municipal districts containing districts of nine, seven, six and ten have less vulnerability against earthquakes, respectively. Third, the parameters analysis using AHP exhibited the weighty value for lands differentiation parameter while, the correlation test revealed that the strong correlation between deteriorated urban fabrics and the final zoning map (R 2 equal to 0.75).