Investigation and Spatial Analysis of Social Vulnerability in Cities of Khuzestan (Case study: Cities over 10,000 People)

Cities are considered as facilitator of the creation of vulnerability conditions. Due to the social and economic status of different groups of people who are living in the dangerous part of city, their vulnerability would be different in various places. Social vulnerability is the product of social inequality. Hence, social vulnerability can explain why some communities are suffering from environmental hazards while others are not in this situation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the social vulnerability of cities over 10 thousand population in Khuzestan province. The VIKOR method was used for achieving to this purpose and the results were presented in the form of a spatial analysis map. The results showed that the cities of Ghaleh Tal (Q = 0.4437), Masjed Soleyman (Q = 0.4455), Mahshahr port (Q = 0.4493), Aghajari (Q = 0.4569), Imam Khomeini port (Q = 0.4766) and Shush (Q = 0.5091) had the highest level of social vulnerability. Also in terms of spatial position, most of the cities with very high vulnerability of Khuzestan province were located in the south of it and the cities of the center of this province had low and middle vulnerability. In the northern part, only the cities of Gotvand, Dezab and Shoosh had high and very high vulnerability