Assessing the physical vulnerability of rural households to floods; Case study: Dargaz county

Iran is the fourth flood-prone country in the world in terms of vulnerability to floods, and Khorasan-Razavi province, in the north-east of Iran, is at a relatively high risk of flooding that suffer from damage caused by floods every year. This province is the first in the number of floods, the third in damage, and the sixth in casualties in the country, therefore, the annual flood causes extensive damage to the villagers, especially in the residential area. The present study examines the physical vulnerability of houses of rural households in Dargaz county in facing floods. The research method is descriptive, analytical, and based on field survey. The housing vulnerability structure is quantified in 6 components of body, content, superstructure, infrastructure, living space, facilities, and equipment using 18 indicators in the Likert spectrum. The reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.96 and favorable. In this study, out of all the villages affected by floods in the county, 9 villages that were most vulnerable to floods in Dargaz county were selected as samples. In total, these villages have 1514 residential units, of which 225 were selected as samples using Cochran's formula. The results showed that among the examined components, the average vulnerability of the infrastructure or foundation with a number of 2.55 is higher than other components. Although the level of physical vulnerability of houses of rural households in Dargaz county in the face of floods has been evaluated with an average of 2.16 less than the theoretical average and in the low to medium range, the amount of damage caused to 38 surveyed households is over 50%, which is not a low figure. Since it is not possible to completely protect against the flood risk, it is necessary to implement appropriate policies to reduce housing vulnerability when living in a flood-prone area.