Assessing liquefaction hazard potential in southern Gorgan-rood plains, Golestan province

Recognizing the susceptible areas for natural hazards is one of the primary steps in natural resources management and Development program schematizations. Assessing existing and future of disaster states can facilitate the design of disaster management organizations. Liquefaction is an important geotechnical phenomenon that usually takes place in saturated loose sandy soils due to increasing pore water pressure and decline soil resistivity. In this research liquefaction hazard potential in west of the Golestan province was evaluated. After processing data and base maps in GIS environment، SWM model was used for producing hazard maps with (20×20m) pixel size، for existing condition. Considering alterations in future water level and seismic acceleration، 7 different scenarios were developed، and hazard maps for these scenarios were obtained. Then area percent around five towns in hazard classes was calculated. The results of statistical comparison show that significance different exist between the hazard classes in different scenarios. The results indicates that the minimum and maximum Liquefaction hazards after earthquake event respectively occurs in 1 and 8 scenarios in Bandar-Torkaman and Bandar-Gaz areas that are in proximity of surface earthquake center and Caspian Sea coasts.