Evaluating the Vulnerability of Agricultural Land Use to the Landslide Risk in Rural Areas (Case Study: Tarom County)

Purpose- Landslides are major hazards to human activities, which often wreak havoc on economic resources, damaging properties and facilities in rural areas. The present study, considering that a prerequisite of any development and planning is the recognition of the geographical features in an area, investigated the risk of landslide due to the expansion of agricultural land uses in rural areas.Design/Methodology/Approach- This is applied research that sought to examine the research background and select the most appropriate methods. Accordingly, it adopted a mixture of quantitative methods (fuzzy Delphi and fuzzy best-worst method), GIS, and remote sensing techniques to achieve the research goal.Findings- According to the research findings, with increasing height, slope, and vicinity to the fault lines, the risk of landslides rises in the study areas. These areas are mostly located in the highlands and the eastern and western regions, where rural areas are chiefly distributed. However, the majority of rural areas are distributed in the middle areas, which have better access to water resources and are in more favorable conditions due to topographic factors. Meanwhile, agricultural lands, due to the use of river water resources, have been distributed in the middle areas, which are classified as low-risk areas in terms of landslides. In contrast, due to the limited flatlands in highlands, agricultural gardens have developed in highlands with a moderate slope, which subsequently poses the risk of landslide. Therefore, the regular monitoring of land use development to increase the safety factor in new housing construction and agricultural lands is one of the planning requirements for land use development in mountainous rural areas.