Quantification of Urban Seismic Resilience Index (a Case Study for Districts 1 and 3 of Zanjan city)

Abstract

Seismic Resilience evaluation is a new approach and is defined to promote creating a more resilient society against natural hazards. Building cities resiliently against these hazards is crucial in order to reduce seismic vulnerability and for proper risk management during the occurrence of coming destructive events. Today, one of the most important hazards, threatening many cities is the occurrence of coming earthquakes. Therefore, by administrating the concept of resilience in cities, the effects of destructive earthquakes can be alleviated and help cities to return to pre-event conditions. In this paper, in order to learn more about the concept of urban resilience and its quantification method, districts 1 and 3 of Zanjan city are selected as the case study, and are compared with each other in terms of resilience parameter. The model used in this study is based on the resilience indicators that the weight of them was obtained by analytical hierarchy system and spreading the questionnaire among experts and then, performing statistical analysis on the data derived from these questionnaires. Finally, the final rate of urban resilience against earthquakes in these areas was calculated using the current relationships in the literature. The results show that the final rate of resilience in districts 1 is 0.432, while it is 0.392 for region 3. Thus, by quantifying resilience, this issue will be more understandable to officials, individuals, policymakers and engineers who are involved in these areas and help them to look for viable and long-term solutions to enhance the urban resilience against earthquakes.