Assessing the Structural Vulnerability of Urban Distressed Areas against Hazards with Passive Defense approach Case Study: Central Worn Texture of Ahvaz Metropolis

Today, following the rapid changes in cities, part of urban texture has failed to establish a proper connection with its environment and servicing to the users due to deterioration and inefficiencies. The existence of a widespread worn texture is one of the most important challenges facing urban managers, urban planners and architects, because the lack of attention to these structures causes the decline of city and its heterogeneous development and the creation of new towns on the edge of the old city. Due to the fact that a significant part of the problems of Ahwaz city has appeared in district 1 of the city, it was considered as the study area, and the central part was studied due to the excessive wear of the texture and the severe deterioration process. The present research is an applied-developmental research in terms of objectives, and a descriptive-analytical one in terms of methodology based on library studies and field investigations. In order to achieve the research goals, the building Structure Indexes, material, number of floors and building age were extracted. Regression tools were used to explore pattern trends, and spatial autocorrelation method existing in Geoda software was used to weigh the layers in spatial data. To examine the vulnerability of worn out texture by using Anselin local Morans method, the cluster & outlier analysis tool from the tool set available in Spatial Statistics Tools relating to the ArcGIS Software was used. The results of this study indicate that 45.83 percent of the surface area is in the range of medium to high vulnerability, suggesting that a large part of the worn out texture in the central area of Ahwaz is somehow in need of passive defense planning.