Assessing and analyzing the vulnerability of urban fabrics from the perspective of passive defense with emphasis on distribution pattern of vital land uses (Case Study: Mahabad City)

One of the principles of passive defense which needs to be paid attention when utilized in critical and sensitive uses is the distribution and deployment of such uses, therefore is to keep and observe appropriate distances and boundaries and also the proximity to other significant uses.

Purpose of the research: 

Explaining the distribution pattern of vital land uses and identifying vulnerable urban tissues is the main purpose of this study.

The presented study has been done with descriptive-analytical methodology for the city of Mahabad (2020). The used data in the study are quantitative (shape files) and in order to measure the density of the distribution of the uses and also their distribution pattern in Mahabad (which are the aims of the study), ArcGIS software’s spatial statistics techniques have been used intensely.

Geographical area of research: 

The study area of this research is the city of Mahabad, which is located in the south of West Azerbaijan province.

The results show that the distribution pattern of the critical faculties is a clustered pattern in a way that the most of these facilities are observed in the central and western parts of the city. Also, the geometric and geographical center is located in the central part and extends northeast to southwest. In other words, the deployment of support and management centers in the central part and major military centers in the western part of the city has caused such a distribution pattern. Therefore the tissues located in these parts have the most vulnerability. In addition, the results from the calculations of the radius of vulnerabilities of critical land uses revealed the fact that 78 thousand people, roughly equal to %53 of the total population and also 887 hectares, equal to %37 of the total area of the city are located in the vulnerability zone center (Elliptical Standard Deviation). This zone which includes the central neighborhoods and the initial and worn out core of the city has a high density of population comparing to the other urban neighborhoods, hence comprises a large part of the urban population.

The issue of vulnerability and safety against accidents and military conflicts in the city of Mahabad is very serious.