Measuring the Iranian Provinces’ Vulnerability to Climate Change

Climate change and the resulting vulnerability has been emphasized in developing nations increasingly. Regarding the vulnerable situation of Iran, this phenomenon may cause more adverse effects. There is a great divergence among the Iranian provinces in terms of their ability and capability to cope with the climate change effects, needing for more deeply investigation.
The objective of this study is to measure the vulnerability of the Iranian provinces and to examine their readiness to cope with the damages.
Vulnerability measurement includes measuring three components of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Different variables were used to measure these components. The compatibility index was measured by subtracting the vulnerability score from the readiness score for each province. The most recent data was applied to calculate the indices.
The results showed that all provinces, to some extent, are vulnerable to climate change and there is an insignificant difference among them in terms of vulnerability; however, they may be clearly distinguished in terms of their readiness. Boushehr, Charmahal and Bakhtiari and Alborz were found to be more vulnerable with scores ranging from 0.55 to 0.65 while Ilam, Isfahan and Qazvin with scores of 0.35-0.45 were classified as provinces with lowest vulnerability. Based on the readiness scores, Tehran ranked as the first one with score of 0.84 while the corresponding value for other provinces were obtained less than 0.45. The final score or compatibility index of Tehran was obtained 0.65 followed by Semnan, Qazvin and Isfahan with corresponding values of 0.45-0.48.