The Assessment of Urban Social Vulnerability to Earthquake (A case study: Zanjan city)

The worldwide studies show that the vulnerability of different groups of people living in risk prone areas is different in parts of the world depending on the level of life and social and economic conditions. So vulnerability is not only the result of being prone to risk rather the result of social, economic and political processes and accident is the final situation resulting from these processes. Considering the vulnerability approaches and theories, people are not vulnerable only due to their proximity to risky areas, but also their social and economic conditions cause increase and decrease in their vulnerability. Poor and low income people in urban areas live in houses with materials of low durability against earthquake and weak or vulnerable areas such as informal settlement areas, rivers boundaries, power transmission lines and slope regions, that in case of natural disasters such as earthquake have very high vulnerability compared with other urban dwellers