Investigation of effective variables in participatory planning in flood management in human settlements (Case study: Latian river basin)

Flood is defined as one of the most dangerous kinds of natural disasters which have caused massive damages, deaths, and economic conflicts on the Latian river basin. Participatory planning is one of the recent planning approaches that has been utilized by planners in a variety of fields such as urban planning, urbanism, environmental planning, and crisis management through the last decades. In this study, with the consideration of the recent investigations over this river basin, region specifications, habitants, and conditions of the Latian river basin, the effective variables of participatory planning were selected. Economical, social, governmental, cultural, and environmental variables were chosen as effective variables in participatory planning in flood management. These variables were then compared with each other, for which the Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method was used to compare and rank the variables because due to the multiplicity of expert opinions and the complete stability, it is possible to calculate the weight of each variable using the data normalization method. After analyzing the data, which are the results of the opinions of 21 experts, it can be concluded that the economic variable with the highest weight is in the highest rank compared to other variables, the governmental variable is placed after the economic variable in the second rank, the social and cultural variable is in the third place after the governmental variable, and the environmental variable is in the fourth place after the social and cultural variable.