Achieving an integrated approach to reduce urban vulnerability against earthquake

Abstract

The linkage between spatial planning and disaster management has been ignored in the urban area of Iran longtime. By extending of urbanization and industrialization in Iran, cities are faced problems such as expansion on hazard prone areas. The central issues of this study are to explore the relationship between risk reduction and urban development in both theory and practice, and to emphasize the need for better cooperation between spatial planning and disaster management in rapidly urbanizing regions. The main goal of the study is to examine and develop a spatial planning methodology that is led to promoting the urban resilience. Several research questions concerning the integration of disaster management and spatial planning, and information for planning support, have been examined. Extensive literature review, quantitative and qualitative analysis based on the primary and secondary data collection have been applied to answer these questions. In the Iranian context, urban planning and disaster management are both undergoing a complex transformation process in concepts, contents, working approaches and institutionalization. The city of Mashhad is the case study. Mashhad urban development process shows that the goals of disaster management in disaster prone areas have not been adequately reflected in the spatial planning system. A multi-disciplinary approach to deal with the conflicts of disaster risk reduction process and land use impacts in the urbanizing areas has not yet been fully developed. The trend of urban development in Mashhad shows that the size of the urban expansion spatially informal settlements will be larger in the coming decades and the pressure on high risk and disaster prone areas. Several new problems which may emerge on an even larger scale will make the situation more serious and complicated especially when an integrated solution of disaster risk reduction has not been fully realized. Therefore it is urgent to have integrated planning options from the strategic level to the local action level. This is the key point of the conceptual model for integrated plan-making process for urban planning system presented in this study.